Next Generation: Change
by Dimitri's.Smexi.Shewolf
Summary: Over 15 years after LS, Anya Belikova is struggling with the things any other nearly-16-year-old girl must; from broken hearts to friends' betrayals, whilst learning to be fearsome Guardian like her parents, and discovering her own destiny. Somehow, between all this, she still has to find time to be with her friends. Who said high school was easy?
1. Chapter 1

My name is Anastasia Dmitrivena Vasya Hathaway-Belikova. But you can call me Anya Belikova.

There are 4 types of people living in this world. Well, if you can call one of them 'people'. I guess there are 3 types of vampires, plus humans, in this world, would be a better statement. Moroi, Strigoi, human, dhampir. That's what I am.  
Half human, half Moroi. I get the best of both species, and am training to become a protector of the Moroi. But there's one thing that us Dhampirs didn't get. We can't have children with other Dhampirs.

_Screw that. Here I am, talking to you. But more on that later._

One day, I will become a Guardian. There is one Moroi I want to protect more than anyone else in the world: my best friend, Sophia.  
Sophia Dragomir- the Queen's daughter. But there's something more that makes her special- she's a Spirit user, just like her mother. But luckily, like my mother, I can help her with that. We're not bonded, but I can help her in other ways, like being there for her, and well, more later.

Aside from this, there are a few other things that complicate my training every now and then.  
One- sometimes I act before I think. But this is why I make sure I keep control of myself all the time, so when I get the urge to punch someone, I take it out on an inanimate object.

The other problem in my life is a guy.  
I've been in love with him for years, but he doesn't feel the same way. But despite everything, I haven't had much luck getting over him. Especially after the last time I saw him...

I'm fifteen years old, training to protect _and_ kill vampires, in love with a completely unsuitable guy, and have a best friend whose weird magic could drive her crazy.  
Sound familiar?

_Think again._

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**Ok, so this is an extract from my new story: ****The Next Generation- Change****.  
It fits in with my ALS series which is in progress, but you don't have to have read that (but please do :D)**

**Set around 16 years after last sacrifice, all the gang's kids have to deal with the usual teenage stuff, as well as some things that only a secret community of vampires could possibly face.**

**This will be the first part in a 3-part series, following Anya's final 3 years at St. Vlads. Can she live up to everyone's expectations, make her parents proud, and change the vampire world?**

**Please review if you'd like me to continue :) **


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 of Change. 1****st**** little but is the same, but the rest is new. Enjoy :D**

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My name is Anastasia Dmitrivena Vasya Hathaway-Belikova. But you can call me Anya Belikova.

There are 4 types of people living in this world. Well, if you can call one of them 'people'. I guess there are 3 types of vampires, plus humans, in this world, would be a better statement. Moroi, Strigoi, human, dhampir. That's what I am.  
Half human, half Moroi. I get the best of both species, and am training to become a protector of the Moroi. But there's one thing that us Dhampirs didn't get. We can't have children with other Dhampirs.  
_Screw that. Here I am, talking to you. But more on that later._  
One day, I will become a Guardian. There is one Moroi I want to protect more than anyone else in the world: my best friend, Sophia.  
Sophia Dragomir- the Queen's daughter. But there's something more that makes her special- she's a Spirit user, just like her mother. But luckily, like my mother, I can help her with that. We're not bonded, but I can help her in other ways, like being there for her, and well, more later.  
Aside from this, there are a few other things that complicate my training every now and then.  
One- sometimes I act before I think. But this is why I make sure I keep control of myself all the time, so when I get the urge to punch someone, I take it out on an inanimate object.  
The other problem in my life is a guy.  
I've been in love with him for years, but he doesn't feel the same way. But despite everything, I haven't had much luck getting over him. Especially after the last time I saw him...  
I'm fifteen years old, training to protect _and_ kill vampires, in love with a completely unsuitable guy, and have a best friend whose weird magic could drive her crazy.  
Sound familiar?

Think again.

The first thing to mention is that I'm the daughter of 2 of the best Guardians the world has ever seen- Guardian Rose Hathaway and Guardian Dimitri Belikov.  
This should, obviously, be impossible.  
But thanks to the help of my amazing Godmother Lissa, who also happens to be Sophia's mum and the Queen, I was born.  
By jiggling my DNA around a little bit when I was just a couple of cells, much like human scientists could, but with magic, I was conceived.  
I am a normal dhampir, pretty much. I have my mother's hair and my father's eyes, and can kick ass as well as them (well, almost.)  
I have slight attitude issues, which I inherit from my mom. If someone irritates me, I'll shoot back a snarky comment. If someone really annoys me, I'll want to punch them in the face.  
But I don't, because I also have my dad's self-control. So most of the time I'll just threaten them, and hope they get the message. If they don't, then I'll punch them.  
I get on better with teachers than mom did, because I actually _work_ in lessons. I work almost as hard in theory lessons as I do in combat training. I get this from dad- I'm a straight-A student, even though I'd rather be outside fighting than in a classroom. But by getting in good with the teachers, I get more leeway on the un-sanctioned fights.  
Except Stan Alto. He hates me as much as he hated mom, but is better at hiding it, as he is scared of dad. It's funny, because when I've made an inappropriate comment in class, or pissed him off, he'll refer to me as just 'Hathaway'. This is what makes it so obvious he hates me because I'm her daughter. It's because of this prejudice that I screw with him more than any other teachers, and for once, dad doesn't care.

More about my family.  
Yes, I live at the Academy. But I see my parents every few weeks, as either they come to visit us, or we go to Court. By 'us', I mean my clan of followers. I mean friends.

Mom and dad being the Guardians of Sophia's mom and dad, we each get to see our parents twice as much.  
This is great, as I know mom never saw her mother when she was growing up. When I was younger, I used to miss my parents sometimes, but I totally understand why I couldn't stay with them all the time. In their defence, they called me every day, wrote letters and emailed me constantly. They are always there if I need them, which is more than most Dhampirs have.

I see my grandma Janine and grandpa Abe quite a lot, too. I think they are trying to make up for never seeing my mom by being there for me and spoiling me. I'm not complaining, I love them both. Abe is hilarious, and tells me stories that Janine shouts at him for, before telling me her own Guardian tales.

I have Aunt Lissa and Uncle Christian, the Queen and King. Then there is obviously Sophia, who has just turned 16, and my mom and Lissa are always so happy that we are as close as they were.  
Then there are Aiden, Ash and Summer, Sophia's brothers and sister. Ash is Sophia's twin, younger by 10 minutes. He annoys the hell out of me, and we are constantly bickering, much to our parents' amusement. Summer is the next youngest, the year below. She is nearly 15, and is already a kick-ass Earth user. She is insanely powerful, and can throw a punch too. Then there is Aiden, who is just 13, and is really sweet and funny.  
The rest of our group is Mason and Marina- Mia and Eddie's twins who are in our year. Mason is just like his dad, and Marina is like her mom, but less girly. I suppose, training as a Guardian and all, she has to be.

Lastly, the other twins- Lily and Jet. They are Sydney and Adrian's children. Lily is like her mom, and Jet has his dad's attitude, but less of a party boy. He has Adrian's green eyes but naturally black hair, which no one can work out where it came from. He's Sophia's sort-of-secret boyfriend.  
Yeah, lots of twins. It seems Spirit users are more likely to have twins, and Human/Moroi pairings also, which would explain how the Dhampir population was established so fast.

Then, there is my Russian family. I go to stay there every holiday, even more so in the last couple of years. Sometimes mom and dad come with me, when they have holiday, or if Lissa and Christian have a conference nearby.  
I go there in the holidays as it beats being stuck at school when there are no lessons, and mom and dad still have to work. It was alright when I was younger; I would spend the whole time with Sophia and her family, and mine obviously. But Sophia always has to have a Guardian present if we go out, who is often a friend of my parents', or we stay in the Palace, where snotty Royals hang around and everything we say is within earshot of my parents.  
Last year, I took Sophia to Russia with me for the first time, and she loved it. Aside from school, she'd never really got away from the Palace, but in my family's home, she was treated like normal.

Anyway, back to my family.  
My dad brought me up to speak Russian alongside English, so I speak both fluently, though I would obviously call English my first language. This has left me with the slightest Russian accent, less that dad's, but still noticeable. (Apparently it becomes more pronounced when I'm angry.)  
I have my aunts, my cousins, babushka and Yeva.  
I call Yeva by her name as she said there is no need for titles between us; we are the same.

Yes, it seems I have inherited the 'second sight' from her, but stronger. This may have been intensified by the Spirit that was used to help make me (that makes me sound like a lab experiment), but Yeva is pretty certain that it is just destiny, and that my parents were always meant to have a child together who would be immensely powerful, and that was just who I was.  
You probably want to know what my 'powers' are.  
Well, I can see the future in flashes, much like Yeva. I can feel truth in people's words, or lies. Pretty average psychic stuff, right?

Wrong.

Because I can also feel what people are feeling. It's sort of like reading people auras, and sort of like having a bond. Instead of seeing colours and interpreting them, if I want I can 'open my heart and mind' as Yeva says, and actually feel what they are feeling.  
On top of this, animals don't hate me like they do usual Dhampirs. In fact, they love me as much as they do Lissa, Oksana and Sophia. Let's just say, the sensing of emotions does not stop at humans/vampires.

But enough of the heebie-jeebie stuff for now.  
In Russia, I hang out with my cousins Zoya and Alicia and their friends, who I get along with really well. There is one person who I get along with better than anyone else- Aleksandr.  
Yes, he is the aforementioned guy that is causing me the problems in life, love and all that shiz.

Aleks is 16, with chin-length medium brown hair (which seems to be normal for guys in Baia), is 6"2, and has dark blue eyes.  
I've been in love with him for as long as I can remember- literally, I don't remember any point when I suddenly realised 'I'm in love with you.'  
It happened somewhere between meeting him for the first time, aged 9, to 'going out' for a couple of weeks, aged 11, to the last few years.  
It started off as a friendship, grew into a crush, and from there into something more. For me, at least.

Back to that later.  
You remember what I said, about getting my mom's looks?  
Well, a couple years ago, this began to become a problem.  
From the age of about 13, I started getting attention from guys. Lots of them. But this is where I differ from my mom.

These boys had probably heard the stories of my mom at school, before she met my dad. They probably expected me to be the same.  
But unlike my mom, I already had my eye on someone, and one only. So this led to a load of, mostly Moroi, guys following me around like (angry) lost puppies, asking me why I wouldn't give them a shot.  
So I told them that I already had a boyfriend, in Russia, who I loved, so they didn't stand a chance. Some backed off, most didn't. Some believed me but didn't care, others thought I was talking bull.

It was a half-truth. I _did_ have someone in Russia whom I loved, he just didn't feel the same way about me. I warned these guys that if they didn't back off, they'd have one pissed off Russian on their asses. When they didn't listen, I changed that to 2- my dad. And my mom for the hell of it. Then I threatened them personally. When that didn't work, I punched them.  
What can I say? I am a Hathaway.

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**Review please :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Thanks to the 3 people who reviewed- it's appreciated :)**

**Ok, haven't done a disclaimer yet. So I DON'T OWN VA. But all the new characters are mine (especially Aleks ;p), and the plot is mine. But credit for VA goes to Richelle Mead. Peace out.**

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I stepped off the plane that had just brought me back to the U.S from Russia, and could see mom, dad, Lissa and Sophia waiting for me at the edge of the runway.  
Dragging my suitcases behind me I jogged over to my family. I let go of the handles as Sophia grabbed me in a bone-crushing hug.

"Soph. Need to breathe right about now." I choked out.

She let me go, looking sheepish.  
"Sorry Anya. I just missed you so much."

I grinned. "Well, I expect life is dull without me around."

I turned to the others.  
"Hey, oldies. Miss me?"

Dad rolled his eyes, mom smiled and Aunt Lissa gave me that look that said I was just like my mom. She hugged me, and I heard mom clear her throat.  
"So just ignore your parents then, why don't you?"

Lissa let go of me and I turned to face mom and shrugged.  
"You can choose your friends, not your family. And I choose friends."

Mom smirked. "Well, I choose your curfew and allowance. So give me a hug."  
I relented, and stepped into her embrace.

She pulled away and held me at arm's length.  
"Have you grown taller since you've been away?" She asked sceptically.

I shrugged. "Probably all the radiation left over from Chernobyl. Same thing that made dad a giant." I had inherited my mom's genes height-wise, coming in at just over 5"5.

"Doesn't the giant get a hug, then?" Dad asked.  
Just to annoy him, I jumped up into his arms, clinging on behind his neck. He swayed me from side to side like he used to when I was little before putting me down.

"_Did you have a good time? How was everyone?" _He asked in Russian.

"_Everyone was fine, papa. It was fun. Zoya and I went shopping and I had to get another suitcase to bring everything home in."_

He shook his head in defeat, surveying the pile of luggage at my feet. I switched to English to include the others.  
"Yeva and I worked on my powers. The visions are getting clearer, less static-y. And I even got one for a3 weeks ahead." I told them proudly. My visions were usually just like snippets of memories from half-forgotten dreams, but they were improving.

Sofia bounced up and down in excitement.  
"Did you see anything interesting?"

"Calm down, I foresee a burst artery if you keep on like that."  
She gave me a withering look.

"OK, I saw there will be chocolate brownie and syrup cornflake cake for desert at the first meal back at St. Vlads. But avoid the custard."  
Everyone who wasn't mom rolled their eyes, she looked impressed.  
"That's my girl, scoping out the dessert a month in advance."

As we drove back to the palace, I thought I could feel excitement and anticipation coming off Sophia. Sure enough, she leaned over and whispered to me.  
"So what was it you wanted to tell me?"

I'd called her a couple of days ago with the promise of a secret when I got back, knowing full well that it would drive her crazy until she knew what it was. But I was just mean enough that I found that funny.  
"Not here. Later." I promised.

I could see that my reluctance to talk about it in front of my parents sparked even more gossip-fever.  
_"Aleks?" _She mouthed.

I just faced the front and smiled, putting my hands on the headrest in front of me.  
"Papa? Turn the music up, I like this one."  
He was only too happy to oblige, it was a long-standing family routine that if there was country music playing, I would get him to turn it up at some point in the journey. Anything to annoy mom.

True to form, she groaned as Miranda Lambert's voice filled the car.  
"Why, world, why? What did I ever do to deserve this?"Mom whined.

"Well, it could be worse. At least I'm not obsessed with cowboys." I pointed out.

"True." She conceded, glaring at dad. "This is your fault, Comrade. I should have burned everything Western the moment I found out I was pregnant."

He just turned and smiled.  
"Come on, you'd miss the duster. And even if you did burn it, there's plenty more where that came from, remember?" **(Last Sacrifice, in the tent :P)**

She just flipped him off, but I could feel that she secretly agreed. She was radiating happiness, and I thought she must have been remembering some far-off conversation.  
I did my best to close off my 'gift', as it was just too creepy to know what my mom was feeling for my dad. Just like Yeva had taught me, I put up mental barriers and was blissfully free of other people's emotions. Mine were enough to deal with on their own.

After greeting all the rest of our crazy bunch, Sophia and I went up to her room in the palace. We sat down on her bed, and I knew that I wouldn't be leaving this room until I had told her everything that had happened in Russia.

She stared at me expectantly, and I stared at her right back. After a minute, she got bored.  
"Oh, come on! Just tell me already!"

So I did.  
I went through all the usual things that had happened- shopping with Zoya, Alicia and Anoushka, hanging out with Aleks. That was where the real story began.

"On the last night before I left, they had organised a leaving party for me. It was pretty good and everything, but we left it too late to go home as we missed the last bus, and we couldn't exactly walk in case of Strigoi. So, like, 6 of us were camping out in the field behind Anoushka's house. I was sharing a tent with the 2 other girls, but they'd fallen asleep really early because they'd had drinks, and I didn't want to go to sleep then because I wanted to sleep on the plane."

Sophia understood; I didn't like flying, so I always tried to sleep through it.  
"The sound of Anoushka's snoring was really annoying me, so I went and sat outside, under this big tree. I was just looking at the stars and thinking about how we had to be back at school in a few weeks, when someone came and sat down beside me."

Sophia's eyes lit up, noticing the important part of the story.  
"It was Aleks. He couldn't sleep either, because he hadn't drunk anything so I wasn't the only one left sober, and the snoring was really loud over by the tents.  
We stayed up talking for a couple of hours, and when he realised how cold I was he'd got a blanket from the tent and we were both sitting under it, and he had his arm around me."

Sophia broke into my story to 'aaw' at that.

"The sun was just staring to rise when I remembered it was my last day, and he told me he didn't want me to go.  
Then I got one of my weird word-future things and it was like 'Some new dawns burn brighter than others, and stretch into the horizon of forever."  
I didn't realise I'd said it out loud for a second, until he held me tighter. Then I turned to look at him. And I was just thinking about how amazing he looked in all the sunrise colours and everything when I realised he was looking at me in the same way."

"Eee!" Sophia squealed, and I gave her a death glare.

"And the next thing I know, we've both leant forward and he's kissing me." I couldn't help the huge grin that spread over my face at that.

"ANYA!" Sophia screamed, and hugged me really tight. I swear, she was one baby step away from a victory dance.  
"Finally! It took you long enough!" She shouted.

"Yeah, yeah. Alright. No need to rub it in."  
As shocking as it may be, yes. The daughter of Rose Hathaway took nearly 16 years to get kissed. Not that others hadn't tried, because many had, but I hadn't let them. I'd always felt strangely like I was cheating on Aleks, though we'd never actually been together. At the end of the day, I loved him enough that the thought of being with anyone else was just wrong.

Sophia shook her head in amazement.  
"Well, that was one hell of a first kiss."

I grinned. "Yeah, beats round the back of the cafeteria pressed up against a dumpster with Brace-face Bryce."

She cringed. "Don't remind me. Anyway, back to you. What was it like?"

I was well aware of the goofy smile on my face, but made no effort to remove it yet.  
"Amazing." I replied simply.

"Aaaw. It must have been really great to have your first kiss with someone you love. Must take some of the awkwardness away." She mused.

"Yeah, it was just really sweet. But then everyone else started to wake up, and I had to go back home. I didn't see Aleks again until I was literally leaving. He came with me to the airport and we didn't talk about it or anything, and his emotions were too weird to get a fix on. Then we hugged, he kissed my cheek and he promised he'd email me. And that was it."

Sophia sighed dramatically, clasping her hands over her heart, falling back onto the bed. "It's so Romeo and Juliet."

I snorted. "Well, I hope we don't end up dead at the end. And our families are friends, not enemies. And we never got married. And we've known each other for years..."

"Alright, alright. I get it. Not Romeo and Juliet. More _like From Russia With Love_." She said, and I rolled my eyes. James Bond obviously had nothing to do with anything except for the name, so I didn't dignify it with an answer.  
I fell back on the bed beside her.

"So what about you and Jet?"  
Now it was her turn to look dreamy.

"Better than ever. And I told my mom about us."

"Really? What did she say?"  
Sophia and Jet had been dating secretly for about 6 months now, but there had been something between them for a while before that. She hadn't told her mom because there was the slight issue of her being the Queen's daughter, and Jet being a Dhampir.

Sophia sighed. "She said she'd know for ages, that she'd seen it in our auras, and so had Adrian. They'd just been waiting for us to say it."

I had actually known that Lissa and Adrian had known about Sophia and Jet. In fact, everyone in our group did. I could feel their emotions when they looked at them ranging from happiness that they were so good for each other, usual parent-ish jealousy that their children were growing up. And pity.  
Pity because though the situation wasn't quite as desperate as before, there were now 8 Dragomirs in existence, the children would still be expected to carry on the bloodline.  
And Jet was a Dhampir. Any children that Sophia and Jet had would also be Dhampirs, which Sophia definitely didn't care about, but a Dhampir couldn't carry on the Dragomir line.

We were silent for a minute.  
"What did she say about the... little Dragomir issue?" I asked.

Sophia sighed.  
"She didn't mention it, I guess because she thinks we still have a few years left and that anything can happen between now and then."  
Though she sounded upset, I could feel a calm resignation in her.  
"And maybe it will be better if I don't have a Moroi child. I mean, Spirit seems to be sort of inherited. By having a Dhampir child, I'd be saving them from suffering like me."

I cringed, knowing how hard it was for her, and all the other Spirit users, to keep the darkness at bay.  
To cover my uneasiness, I changed subject.  
"So other than that, it sounds like it's been a pretty average couple of weeks?"

Sophia grinned. "Well, we couldn't all spend the holiday making out with hot Russians, now could we?"

"And which hot Russian would that be?" A voice behind us said.

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**Ooh, cliffie. Pleaseee review and tell me what you think of the story- I haven't had many for this :( Reviews are like virtual doughnuts- and I'm hungry :o So review and you get a virtual doughnut too :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Thanks to the people who reviewed- you're great :D **

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"_And which hot Russian would that be?" A voice behind us said. _

We both shot up, and I prayed it wasn't someone who would tell my dad. I relaxed when we saw it was Jet.  
"Hey Anya." He greeted me, and I stood up to hug him.

I ruffled his hair, smirking.  
"Good to see Christian didn't reduce you to cinders for being with his little girl."

He grimaced. "Still, at least it wasn't _your_ dad I had to deal with."

"Yeah, that'd be a real deal-breaker." Added Mason, stepping into the room.

"Naww, Mase. I knew there was another reason we never worked out. You were too scared of my big bad daddy."  
Mason and I had 'dated' when we were about 7, and by that I mean walking around the playground holding hands and calling him 'my boyfriend'.

Mason collapsed against me, throwing his arms around my neck, fake sobbing.  
"I'm so glad you finally understand. It's been killing me inside!"

I slapped his arm until he let me go, and turned back to Sophia, who was currently making out with Jet. I cleared my throat obnoxiously.

Jet looked up.  
"So, who was that 'hot Russian'?" He asked, grinning.

I raised an eyebrow and smiled wryly.  
"You know, a lady should never kiss and tell."

"Well, good thing you're not a lady, then." Laughed Mason, before tackling me to the ground.

A few seconds later, I had him pinned.  
"Okay, I may not be the typical damsel in distress. But _you_ sure do hit like a girl."

Just then, Ash walked in.  
"Ooh, fighting talk from Anya on top there. Kinky."

I stood up, deliberately avoiding looking at Ash. I turned to his sister instead.  
"Soph, you seriously need to start locking your door. That mangy dog got in again."

Ash snorted. "You can't talk about mangy dogs, Anya. We had to put up with that wolf whilst you were gone."

I spun around, momentarily forgetting my annoyance at Ash's presence.  
"Where is he? Soph dragged me up here before I could see him."

I stuck my head out of the door, and shouted.  
"Reka!"  
A few seconds later, I heard the thud of heavy paws on the stairs, and was almost knocked backwards as the huge ball of grey fur hit me.

Reka was the dog I had begged my parents to let me get for my 13th birthday. They'd been unsure at first- although animals loved me, they weren't sure how one would be around them.  
But with my awesome animal skills, and a few weeks of gentle encouragement, the dog had finally got used to them, and although he preferred Moroi, he could stand to be near Dhampirs without going crazy.

I'd got him at an animal shelter, and right from the start I'd felt a connection with him. My mom thought he was pretty cool, since he looked like a wolf (we weren't entirely sure he wasn't part wolf), and said yes. I had dad wrapped around my little finger, and with some pleading eyes and a 'go on, Comrade' from mom, Reka coming home with us. His name meant 'river' in Russian, because when he ran, it was as smooth as running water. And it sounded like 'wrecker', which still made me laugh every time he ate Ash's shoes. He didn't like Ash much.

As I said- we had a connection.

Reka finally stopped licking my face, and went to sit by the window, watching the people moving around outside the palace, after growling at Ash.

Sophia stood up.  
"Alright, guys. Out of the room, now. Where are the girls?" She asked.

"At the gym, training. They'll be here in a minute." Mason told us.  
The 2 novices were currently teaching Summer to fight, which she was surprisingly good at, for a Moroi, and she was using her powers to make training more interesting for the other 2.

Our last training session had involved Sophia moving the dummies with telekinesis whilst we tried to stake them, and Summer using vines to grab us, like an attacking Strigoi would use their arms. It was a great method of practicing, but though defensive magic was now taught at St. Vlads, our trainings never overlapped, which was a shame.

When the girls got back from the gym, we all lay on Sophia's huge bed and they updated me on the latest Court gossip, whilst I filled them in on what happened in Russia.

It was nice hanging out with all my girl friends, but as I talked about him, I found myself missing Aleks more and more. I always felt so comfortable around him, without even speaking. I loved the girls, but when I was with them I found myself making more frequent jokes to fill the silence. This wasn't bad, just... different.

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We were all sitting round the huge table in the royal dining room, all 20 of us- (Abe, Janine and Mia's dad were here too). It was rare that all of us be here at once, but they'd all come to say hi to me before we all went back to St. Vlads tomorrow. We were laughing at Adrian's last epic fail at looking after the house whilst Sydney was away for the weekend he had to call a maid in just to clean the house up before she got back, because Jet and Lily had been in a fight and wrecked the living room.

Trying to divert the attention for himself, Adrian asked if we'd all got our bags packed, because we'd be leaving early tomorrow.

I suddenly became very interested in a potato on my plate, ignoring the pointed stares.  
"Anya..?" Dad asked, and I looked up.

"I'll do it tomorrow morning, when I know what the weather's going to be like. That way, I don't have to pull everything out of the case again just to find what I want to wear."

He shook his head in despair.  
"You're as bad as your mother, which also means that you won't do it in the morning. You won't even wake up until someone drags you out of bed, 5 minutes before the plane leaves."

"Fine, whatever. I'll go do it..." I trailed off, my eyes becoming unfocused. The buzz of conversation faded out around me, and it was like a wave of jumbled images, mumbled words and static fuzz crashed over me.

When I fought my way back to the surface, it appeared I'd only been out for a couple of seconds, as only the people closest were staring at me intently.  
"What was it, Anya?" Mom asked.

I blinked, trying to fight through the confused jumble of information to find something that made sense.  
"Changes. Everything's changing, over and over, round and round again. Turning full circle."

By now everyone looked bemused, but a clearer thought in my mind meant I had to ignore them.  
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, about 5 seconds before it started ringing. I didn't even need to check caller ID, though I was surprised at who I thought it would be calling.

I answered on the second ring, holding up a finger to tell my mom to hold off on the lecture that would probably ensue from taking a call at dinner. This was important.  
_'Anya?'_

"Aleks! Hey!" Uuh, I sounded so... perky. Bleaugh.

I heard him chuckle softly. _'I can't talk for long, I just have to tell you. I'm at the airport- I'll be in America in 12 hours."_

"America...airport...what?" I stuttered. It's hard to catch a psychic off guard, but if anyone could, it would be Aleks.

"_Yes. My mother was talking to Olena, and they were talking about their sons, and my mom was saying how she'd like me to have the same chances your dad did. So that made her think about America, and then she spoke to my teacher. They told her how I'm the best at English, and how a trip to America would be good for me, and how it would help me be a better Guardian. They've wanted to send a pupil to St. Vladimir's for a while, and since I know people there, it's even better. So when they asked me if I wanted to go, I said yes."_

I literally couldn't speak, and I wasn't made speechless very often.

"_Anya?" _

"Why didn't you tell me before? We go back tomorrow, Aleks."

"_Well, I only really decided 3 days ago, and I've been really busy getting everything sorted, and I packed my phone and only just managed to find it." _I could feel this was all the truth.

"Will you be here tomorrow, then?" I asked.

"_Yes, I'll meet you at the school." _I could hear the smile in his voice.

I heard a muffled announcement over the speaker system.  
_"That's my flight now. I'll see you tomorrow, Anya. I missed you."_

"I missed you too, Aleks."

I ended the call, and turned back to meet the questioning gazes of my friends and family.  
"Aleks is just boarding a plane that will bring him to St. Vladimir's in time for school tomorrow. St. Basils thought it would be good for him to transfer here."

There was silence for a moment, before Jet opened his mouth to speak. By the smirk on his face, it wouldn't be a genuine question or comment.  
"Get in there, Anasta-"

I swiped a pea off of Sophia's plate and threw it into his open mouth, which he promptly spat out into Ash's face.

"Not all of us feel the need to date our best friend, Jet."  
He shut up, and for the next 10 minutes I answered questions from my parents about why Aleks was coming, and how he was getting to the Academy.

When I finally got to my room, I slumped down on my desk chair, and Sophia sat on my bed.  
I got straight back up again and closed the door, before dragging out my 2 huge suitcases and throwing things in their general direction.  
Sophia immediately moved over to the cases and began folding clothes into them.

I growled in frustration.  
"I have nothing nice to wear!"

"Well, there are ways of solving that."  
Finishing with one case, Sophie pulled out her phone and called a number she'd memorised years ago.  
"Nadine? Hi. Listen, we have a bit of a clothes emergency. We're going back to St. Vladimir's tomorrow and don't have anything to wear. Can you send over some of the new collection in Anya's size? Please, Nadine, we'd come over now, but we have to pack."

I heard a muffled reply.  
Nadine worked at our favourite clothes shop at Court. She was used to Sophia calling her to put in rush orders, so I doubted this would be a problem, even if the deadline was closer than usual.

"Thanks, Nadine. You're the best. Oh, and can you bring those black boots I tried on last week? Great. See you in half an hour, then. Bye."

She hung up, and turned to me, grinning.  
"We got the threads."

Half an hour later, Frederic, the flamboyant shop assistant, was waiting in the hallway, flanked by Adrian.

I took the heavy box out of Frederic's arms, and Sophia pulled a stack of bills out of her back pocket.  
After a moment's discussion, I saw her count out 7 $50 bills. Having grown up with Sophia, I was used to it.

"Seriously, Soph. I swear you spend more on clothes than I did at your age." Adrian said.

"But in the case of hair products, we are a speck on the horizon of overspending allowances." I shot back, and he smirked, running a hand through his messy hair.

"Perfection like this doesn't come naturally."

"Definitely not, in your case." I said, looking him up and down with a pitying eye.

He stepped forward and ruffled my hair.  
"Hey! Hands off the merchandise." I shouted, stepping back.

Adrian grinned. "Just like your mother."

I scowled, trying to flatten my hair. "Yeah, and I can kick ass just as well as her, so you better watch it."

"I don't doubt it, Annie."  
He turned and walked off before I could tell him off for calling me Annie. I hate being called that. True, Anya wasn't even a proper diminutive for Anastasia, but I wasn't exactly one for following the rules.

Later that night, I lay in bed, turning things over and over in my head.  
Tomorrow, I would see Aleks again, for the first time since the kiss. I wasn't sure what it would be like. Would it be awkward, or would we act like nothing had changed? I knew that he didn't feel the same way about me as I did him, and I was used to that, and I severely doubted that one spare-of-the-moment kiss would change that. To him, it was probably just something not too far from normal for2 best friends who wouldn't see each other in months.

I don't know.

I turned over again, trying to instruct my brain to fall asleep instantly like dad could, but it didn't work.  
After a long while of tossing and turning and replaying every word in my head, I finally managed to drift off, hugging a pillow, and imagining Aleks' arms around me.

* * *

**So Anya has foreseen changes, and Aleks is going to St. Vlads. I sense drama brewing...**

**Please review, it makes me update faster- for all of my stories :) **


	5. Chapter 5

**! ! ! IMPORTANT ! ! !**

**I just realised I did something really stupid. As you may have noticed, this story has less chapters than it did earlier. That is becuase I somehow managed to opst the worng chapter, noit just once, but twice, leaving a huge gap between chapters 4 and '5'. Chapter 5 was, in reality, chapter 8. **  
**So please forgive me my idiocy, and read these chapters in the right order this time. Maybe chack back and see how the last chapter ended. **

**If this is your first time reading this story, then ignore the message above and carry on as though I did it right the first time :P**

* * *

"Anya! Wake up already!"  
I groaned, rolling over and stuffing my head under the pillow. Sophia would go away in a minute.

"Anya! If you don't open this freaking door in 5 seconds, I'll knock it down!" I heard my mom shout.

As it was, I heard Summer approach, and heard the lock turning slowly. Times like this her Earth/metal manipulation powers really sucked.

I heard the door slam against the wall and something heavy landed on me.  
"Ow! Sophia, get the hell off me!"

She did, and a second later the blanket disappeared.

I cracked an eye open to see my mom standing by my bed, blanket in hand. Sophia stood a little way behind her, looking wary.

"Mo-om. Just 5 more minutes, please." I begged.

She shook her head. "Not a chance. You'll miss the plane, and then you'll be stuck in one of Stan's lectures on your first day. And, Aleks will be all alone in a place he doesn't know..."

I shot out of bed, stumbling to my drawers.  
"Okay, give me 5 minutes!"

In a new record for me, I was out of the bathroom, fully dressed with hair and makeup done in 12 minutes. As I pounded down the last flight of stairs with my backpack bumping along behind me, I heard the boys cheer.  
"Wow, Anya. When did 5 minutes seem to take twice long?" Ash asked.

"Since I have to spend it with you." I countered, and bent down to pull on my boots. I shoved my silver-plated pocket knife into the left one, and stood right in front of the door, tapping my foot impatiently.  
"Well? Aren't we going, then?"

As we were about to board the plane, Marina and Mason and Jet and Lily said goodbye to their parents. They wouldn't be coming with us, as Sydney wasn't really welcome at St. Vladimir's, and she didn't want to go anyway. Mia and Eddie had work to do, but they would come and visit first.

Eventually, we were all on the plane. I sat at the window seat on my own, knowing I'd be no fun during the rest of the flight. Sophia came and sat down next to me for a moment, and I allowed her to compel me to fall asleep.

"Anya. We're here."  
I opened my eyes to see Sophia leaning over me, and I fought off the lingering effects of the compulsion-sleep.

I quickly checked my hair in the reflective door of the plane as we got off, and after running a hand through it, was satisfied.

As I looked around the familiar landing strip of St. Vlads, I felt a strange swirl of apprehension.  
_Changes._

I turned to Sophia.  
"It feels like that plane door just slowly shut on a piece of my soul."

She laughed. "Oh, stop being so melodramatic."

As we got closer to the administrative buildings, we began to see more and more people, until there was a definite crowd of people, all bowing slightly when they saw Lissa and Christian.

I smiled at a few of my novice friends as we tried to reach the front desk, and once all the admin was done, we had half an hour before we had to get to our dorms.

We all made out way onto the quad, and spent the last few minutes with our parents.  
But the whole time, I was scanning the steady stream of people coming from the front gates.  
Some people came up to us to say hi to Sophia and me, and some came to suck up to the Queen.

I was just giving a dirty look to one such Royal snob when I heard a bunch of girls on my left giggling.  
"Have you seen him? He's so hot."

"I know. I just want to jump him right there."

I rolled my eyes at how shallow and pathetic they sounded, when I heard my name called by one voice that made my heart soar.  
"Asya!"

I spun around, and saw a familiar smile. A tall Dhampir was pushing his way through the crowd towards us, surrounded by girls who were shamelessly checking him out.

"Sasha!" I shouted, running the few paces to meet him.  
He swept me up in a huge bear hug, and I held him just as tightly. I breathed in a lungful of his delicious scent before releasing him, Aleks still holding my wrists.

"_I missed you, Asya." _He told me in Russian.

"_Why didn't you get here earlier, then?" _I countered.

He laughed, an amazing sound that made my heart skip.  
"_Sorry to have kept you waiting. It must have been torture."_

I slapped his arm, before dragging him over to my friends and family, ignoring the jealous looks from the girls around us. And by ignoring, I mean acknowledging the fact with a small, smug smile on my face.

My mom was the first to greet him.  
"Hey, Aleks. Didn't expect you to turn up here."

"Me neither. It happened very fast."

"See, I told you there were easier ways of getting here than stowing away in my suitcase."  
I stifled a laugh as I remembered leaving Russia at about 6 years old. When it came time for me to go, we were plotting on hiding him in a suitcase until we got onto the jet. It failed miserably.

Mom hugged Aleks, and he towered over her.  
"Aleks, you got so tall! Seriously, do they put something in the water in Baia?"

Aleks grinned, looking down on her.  
"Well Rose, I'll bring you a bottle if you want some."

Mom glared. "Cheeky boy. You're on my turf now, this is America, I could sue."

Aleks turned to dad. They shook hands.  
"Aleksandr."

"Mr. Belikov, sir."

I rolled my eyes. When we were younger, Aleks would just call him 'Dimka', and we'd both run around, begging him to play Strigoi whilst we tried to 'stake' him. But around when we turned 13, something changed, and dad started to treat him almost like my boyfriend or something. It was as annoying as it was amusing.

Aleks reached into his pocket and pulled out a white envelope, handing it to dad.  
"This is from Olena."

After dad thanked him, I pulled Aleks over to my friends.  
"Everyone, this is Aleksandr Kozlovski. Introduce yourselves, because I can't be bothered."

As everyone greeted individually, I had to poke Marina in the side, hard.  
"Quit drooling. He's totally off-limits."

She blushed, looking at the ground.  
"Sorry. He's just so hot, and charming, and he has that accent..." She trailed off, paling under my death glare, whilst Sophia laughed.

"It's okay, Marina. You don't have to tell _Anya_ why he's so hot..." I elbowed her in the side as Aleks came back over to me, just one of the Head Guardian shouted that we had to be in the lobby ready to go to our dorms in 5 minutes.

The Dragomirs and I turned to our parents.  
I hugged Lissa and Christian goodbye, before turning to my own parents.  
"_Bye, Papa."_

Dad scooped me up in a huge hug, and kissed my cheek.  
"_Bye, Milaya. We'll see you in a couple of weeks. Stay out of trouble."_

"Comrade, she's my daughter too. That's never gonna happen."

"Well, we can always hope." He said lightly, before letting go of me.

I wrapped my arms around mom, and she held me tightly. True, sometimes we clashed, but with our similar personalities, it was bound to happen. The fact I had some of my dad's traits as well helped sometimes, but my so-called 'Rose logic' mixed with 'Zen life lessons' pissed her off. Even she couldn't compete with that.  
"Seriously though. Don't start any fights, unless you're told to by a Guardian. And that includes me, and what you think I'd say if I was there. Annoy Stan for me, and pay attention in class so you can rub your perfect A in his face. Have fun, baby."

"I will, mom."  
After giving me one last squeeze, she released me, leaning into dad.

By now, people were making their way through the double doors into the main admin building. With a final wave to our parents, we all filed in.

After another few minutes of pushing and shoving, the Lead Crony, or dorm matron, eventually got us all to shut up.

"Okay, students. This year, you will be allowed to choose you own dorm rooms."  
A general whisper of excitement washed through the crowd."  
"However, the rules are as follows. 1) Male/female pairings are strictly forbidden."

There was a sigh of disappointment. Did people seriously think they were going to get away with that?"

"2) Every Moroi must have a Novice in their room to protect them."  
This was nothing new to us. After the attack on the school during my mom's time, this was common practice. Also, Lissa had tried to lessen the segregation of Moroi and Dhampirs, so this had been her idea.

"3) Only once all the Moroi have a novice assigned to their room may the remaining Dhampirs pair with other Dhampirs."

Since Moroi had learned to fight for themselves, they could occasionally step in to save their Guardian's life. This had meant that the number of Dhampirs had gone up, as well as the fact that Moroi/Dhampir long-term relationships were more acceptable now. On top of this, more female Dhampirs were choosing to become Guardians, and still have children, influenced by none other than my mom.

The number of Moroi attending St. Vladimir's had been dropping for a while, mostly due to the attack where so many Moroi were killed. Parents thought that having so many Dragomirs in one place was like a Strigoi magnet, so avoided the risk. It was a great school for novices, though, with ties to great Guardians such as Castile, Belikov and Hathaway.

The number of Moroi and Dhampirs were at an all-time high, and Strigoi were less of a threat. But still, all this meant that there were currently more Dhampirs than Moroi at St. Vladimir's. Not by much, but still there.

The first people began to sign their names on the list, but my group hung back. We all had our rooms pretty much sorted, anyway.  
When we reached the front of the queue, I was pleased to see that there were plenty of decent rooms left. The Moroi's names were already printed on the sheet, with blank spaces next to them, all the vampire had to do was sign to show they were happy with the choice.

I wrote my name down next to Sophia's, and Lily next to Summer. Marina chose to be on her own- she was a nightmare to share a room with. She always stayed up late, snored ridiculously loud, and got up at a hideous hour in the morning to do her hair and makeup. She was the only novice I knew that ended the day looking as perfect as what they did first thing.

I could hear the boys joking about who had to 'put up with fire-crotch', and to decide they flipped a coin. Mason lost, and signed his name next to Ash Ozera. Aiden was to be sharing with his friend Sam, as they were 3 years below us.

After that, there wasn't much room on the boy's list- only one 5th floor room left, and a few 3rds and a 1st. None had Moroi assigned to them., since most Novices tried to get into Moroi rooms, hoped it would help them get an assignment.

Jet turned to Aleks.  
"You want to share a room? I mean, as long as you don't snore or anything."

Aleks smiled. "I'd like that. I don't really want to be on my own, since it's my first time out of Russia."

I smiled to myself as we left the hall.  
This was going to be an interesting year.

* * *

**Sorry for any confusion this chapter mix-up may have caused. Everything should be fine from now on... I hope...**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: Richelle Mead owns Vampire Academy. Not me :( **

* * *

Chapter 6

I sighed in pure happiness as I entered our new room. It was bigger than last year, and in a better position. Maybe we only got this room because Sophia was the Queen's daughter, but I didn't care. We actually had our own en suite bathroom for the first time ever.

The first thing I did was claim the bed closest to the single window, leaving Sophia the one in the corner furthest from the sunlight. We were both happy with this system, and had done this our whole lives.

I then threw my case on the bed, pulling my speakers out of the side pocket and plugging my iPod in. I hit shuffle, cranked up the volume, and began unpacking.

Well, I say unpacking. It was probably 30% moving clothes and stuff from cases to the wardrobe, 70% dancing around to the music whilst Sophia rolled her eyes and shook her head disapprovingly. I managed to get her to join in eventually, though.

I was just sticking my favourite photos above my bed when I heard a knock on the door. Sophia opened it, and I put up the last picture, before turning and somersaulting off the bed.

Jet raised an eyebrow. "I could hear the music from down the hall, and figured it was you."

Aleks stepped out from behind him. "That and your singing gave it away."

I turned away, hoping desperately that I wasn't blushing. It didn't help that I noticed a stray bra on the floor at the foot of my bed. Flicking a nearby T-shirt on top of it, I grudgingly went to turn the music down.  
"Came to join the party, did you?" I asked as I shoved my now-empty suitcase under the bed.

Turning back, I saw Sophia and Jet already eating each other's faces off. It was actually a little nauseating, since they were doing it in my room.  
I threw a pillow at them. "And I did not mean the party in your pants!"

I rolled my eyes, looking at Aleks. "You'd better get used to this. One minute you're having a civilised conversation, the next this is happening, like something off the discovery channel. It's awful, but there is a guaranteed way to stop them."

I moved closer to the couple, and forced my face between theirs, making kissy noises.  
They broke apart almost instantly.

"Eew, Anya!" Jet shouted, as I cackled evilly.

Aleks shook his head in resignation.  
"I may be on the other side of the world, but some things stay the same."

I grinned. "I will never change!"  
With that, I turned up the music and began dancing again, grabbing Aleks' hands and forcing him to move with me.

A minute later, we were interrupted by my stomach growling loudly. I glanced at the clock to see that we only had 5 minutes until dinner.

"Hey, food! We gotta go!" I shouted, grabbing my jacket and darting out of the room, leaving my laughing friends trailing behind me. They knew that when it came to food, they would always come second.

They were just about to open the cafeteria doors when we reached the hall. I shoved through the crowd, pushing towards the front and ignoring the grumbles of the people I knocked out of the way. Whatever, they should have moved when they saw me coming. The others following in my wake.

I reached the door just as it opened and I darted through, much to the annoyance of everyone else there. But nobody said anything- getting in the way if Anastasia and something she wanted was a one-way ticket to a fight. Getting in the way of a hungry Anastasia and food was a one-way ticket to the afterlife.

I was first in line as they piled lasagna onto my plate, and I picked up the biggest slices of brownie and syrup cake I could see. With a small smile at the accuracy of my prediction, I avoided the custard and made my way to the best table- the one 2 away from the food counter. That way, we were close enough to get seconds if there were any, but the dinner ladies wouldn't see if I ate everyone else's as well as my own.

A moment later, Aleks, Sophia and Jet joined me. Sophia, I noticed, also had a custard-free desert.

The rest of the gang soon joined us. We now had a full table for pretty much the first time in forever. The long benches seated 10 people, and there had always been an empty seat before.

It was so weird to have Aleks here sitting next to me, to see him joking with the others. He was such a likeable person that I was unsurprised to see that he had fitted right in with our group.

Sophia and I watched intently as Ash raised the first spoonful of syrup sponge to his mouth. I'd already finished both of my custard-free cakes, and was doing a mental victory dance that Ash would be the first victim of the school food this year.

After less than a second in his mouth, Ash spat the mush back into the bowl.  
"What the hell is that?" He almost shouted, as the rest of us laughed at him.

Mason, being the guy he is, dutifully tried some of his, wrinkling his nose at the taste.  
"I think they used salt instead of sugar." He choked, causing another round of laughter.

The people on other tables were starting to discover the latest school-food cockup, and Aleks turned to me.  
"I see why you don't stay here in the holidays now. This isn't exactly Olena's cooking, is it?"

"Nothing compares to my babushka's cooking. It's worth the plane ride just for that."

"Is that the only reason you keep coming back?" He asked, looking up at me through his lashes.

"Of course not." I replied in mock outrage, trying to think coherently as my brain turned to mush.

"Because of me?" He asked hopefully.

"I was thinking more towards the lines of cheap, gorgeous clothes, but yeah, that too."

"You break my heart, Anya." He said, clutching his chest.

You break mine too, I thought.

Mason spoke up. "That's our Anya, the little heartbreaker. Always makes all the boys cry."

"You want to be next?"

He shook his head. "Nah, you'll do that in combat class tomorrow anyway.

That reminded me.  
"Hey, I picked up our schedules on the way over here. Let's see what everyone's got."  
I spread the papers out flat on the table, scanning them to find my schedule.

1st Guardian Combat Techniques  
2nd Bodyguard Theory and Personal Protection  
3rd Language Arts (Novices)  
4th Weight Training and Conditioning  
5th Moroi Culture 2  
6th Precalculus  
7th Animal Behaviour and Psychology  
8th Slavic Art

I then checked the others' schedules.

Yes! As well as Mason, Aleks had exactly the same timetable as me. I'd get to spend every lesson with him. I did an internal victory dance.

The other novices had practically the same as me, but 5th and 6th were switched. Except Lily of course- she had nerd maths, where she went into class with the year above.

I then checked Sophia's schedule. Ash had the same one as his sister.  
1st Russian 1  
2nd American Literature  
3rd Basics of elemental control  
4th Self-defence  
5th Moroi Culture 2  
6th Precalculus  
7th Animal Behaviour and Psychology  
8th Slavic Art

Everyone else then looked at theirs.

Mason looked at Aleks, a cocky grin sliding into place.

"We have combat next lesson. We can finally see if you're as good as you're supposed to be, Aleks."

He caught my eye, grinning.  
"Yes, we'll see. I'll finally know if the American system is really any better at training, or if it's just Anya who can kick my ass."

Mason glared playfully. "Oh, it is on, Ruski."

* * *

Mason hit the mat with a loud thud. Aleks stood over him with a triumphant smile.

"Apparently you Americans do nothing other than sit around all day eating donuts." He said, as he helped Mason off the floor.

I stepped forward, out of the rind of spectators that had left their own fights to watch the new guy.

"Hey, the amount of donuts eaten by an individual has no detrimental effect on their fighting."  
I stood in front of Aleks with my arms crossed, eyes narrowed.

"Prove it." He said, and I didn't waste another second.

I leapt at him, feinting right before striking out with my left elbow. Aleks blocked the blow to his face, and I used my downward momentum to kick him in the knee. He barely flinched, but the momentary lapse allowed me time to hit his open chest.

We went on like this for a while, giving everyone a show, until I got bored.

Grabbing Aleks' right forearm as it swung towards me, I forced it down whilst twisting my wrist and bringing my knee up to his stomach. I then nailed behind his right shoulder with my right elbow, and in the half-second this gave me, I caught his left fist in my own, and brought it up and towards me, kicking him in the knee again.

As he lost balance, I pulled on his shoulder, spinning his body until his back was to me. I then slammed both palms against his back, forcing his already unstable body to the ground.  
He rolled with the impact, but I managed to stay on top, before slapping his chest above his heart, 'staking' him.

People around us clapped, but the sound seemed to fade as my proximity to Aleks made my head spin. The memory of that kiss came flooding back, and I forced myself to stand up.

Aleks got up too. "Ok, so the donuts aren't weighing you down. I never even saw that coming. Did you learn that one off your dad?"

I shrugged. "Kinda, if by that you mean watching him suffer the same fate as you. It's one of mom's favourite 'take down the tall guy' moves."

Aleks laughed, hitting my shoulder playfully. "You Hathaway women will be the death of us St. Basil's guys."

My already racing heart beat a little harder. Was he putting me and him in the same context as my mom and dad?

I forced myself to ignore it. To cover up my mini-analysis lapse, I grinned. "You better believe it." Then I winked, before walking towards Marina and Lily, who were staring at me incredulously.

"What?" I whispered. "Just because the guy turns me into a jittery mush on the inside, doesn't mean I have to let the world know that!"

Marina frowned. "Maybe you should, or at least let them know he's off-limits. Or we may have some trouble with the natives."

She nodded over my shoulder to where Carrie, another friend of ours, was flirting with Aleks.  
I fought back a territorial growl, and thankfully the bell went before Aleks could respond to her advances.

In the changing rooms, Carrie approached me.  
"Hey, is Aleks single? Because he's really hot and that accent-"

I cut her off with a glare. "He's not looking for a relationship right now. He's only been in the country for 3 days, and already every girl is trying to get it on with him! Can't he at least get through the first day without being molested!? It would be nice if people made the effort to get to know him and make him feel welcome first!"

She blinked, put off by my outburst. "Uh, sure. You're right, I wasn't thinking. He seems like a nice guy, I don't want him feeling pressured or anything."

I forced myself to smile, trying to repair the mess I'd already made of this.  
"Sorry, I didn't mean to shout. It's just that he's a great guy, and my best friend. I want him to settle in here and stay, not be scared off before the term is up. He's been sent here to study, and I'm worried that if he gets distracted by a girlfriend, he won't get high enough grades to be allowed to stay here by his school."

"Ohhh." Carrie breathed. "That's a good point. He's lucky to have such a considerate friend."

I nodded gratefully. Yeah, considerate, as in -for a minute there I had been _considering_ the possibility of a full make-out session right there on the gym floor.

I shook the mental image off, waking with Carrie and the other girls to out next lesson. Nothing more was said about Aleks.

1 girl down- 99 to go.

* * *

**EeeEeeEee! That picture of Zoey and Danila after training X.X I'm pretty sure they heard my squeal from London, even though I live 70 miles away... just realised I AM LESS THAN 100 MILES AWAY FROM ROSE AND DIMITRI! **

**How is my brain still functioning? **

**Review please :)**


	7. VERY IMPORTANT AUTHORS NOTE

First I would like to say that if anyone feels that I have copied their story, please tell me via review now. I cannot turn on PM for personal reasons that really shouldn't matter to anyone. That's my choice.

To the person that reviewed 6 times to accuse me of plagiarism. I'm not going to get in a rage over this, though I want to. I just want you to know that I am hurt and offended that you would accuse me of plagiarism. I can solemnly swear that it isn't true. It isn't nice being accused of something untrue isn't nice. I have not copied any other author's work.

To anyone who might believe that this story has been 'stolen' from some other author.

Firstly, because as any author knows, plagiarism is wrong, and is horrible for those whose story has been ripped off.

Second- I can't even find the existence of 2 authors that I have supposedly 'stolen from', and the other has no story that I have found that relates to my own.

Third- This story 'Next Generation- Change' is based off my own life. 'Anya' is me, 'Sophia' is my friend V, 'Marina' is my friend N, and 'Lily' is my friend M. 'Aleks' is based on a guy called 'A', and our relationship is very similar to what is described in the story.  
I didn't want to have to say this, since it should be irrelevant that this story is based off my own life story, but there it is. Due to this false allegation, I have been forced to reveal this.

Fourth- I know that there are several 'next generation' stories out there surrounding Rose and Dimitri's child/ren, but this does not mean I am copying them. In a fandom this size, it is bound to happen. Just like there are hundreds of 'reading the books', 'Dimitri leaves Rose for Tasha' and 'alternate ending to Shadow Kiss' stories.

Accusing someone of plagiarism is very damaging to an author's reputation, and in the past I have felt sorry for those I have seen accused of this.

To my loyal readers- please do not believe these claims that I am a fraud. It hurts me that my stories- my escape when the world feels like it is falling in around me- are being targeted.

If you have any concerns that I have taken any story ideas from other author or even yourself, please leave a review and I will reply. However, I am confident that nobody will have any issues. If there is ANY similarity at all between my story and somebody else's, I can assure you all that it is purely coincidental. Tell me and I will resolve any issues the best I can.

I am sorry for any confusion or hurt that this has caused anyone. I can assure you that I am feeling that way personally. I pride myself on my integrity, morals and honesty in life, and this false allegation is breaking all of those personal values I hold for myself.

Loyal readers, please support me in this. I am worried that this might become more serious, and that my place in this community of fellow writers is at risk. After all- we have all been brought here by our love for this series and the characters within it. I would never insult another author, or the characters, or Richelle Mead by breaking any rules or taking away something that other authors have slaved over and loved. I love my stories dearly, and they truly are a part of me. I would never try to take that away from somebody else.

Thank you for reading this. ~ Dimitri's . Smexi . Shewolf


	8. Another Author's Note

Thank you so much to everyone who is standing by me with this. I admit that I feel pretty rubbish at the moment, having my story Next Generation: Change, and myself, under scrutiny like this. I feel physically sick whenever I think about it.

After re-reading the reviews I got informing me of my 'blatant plagiarism', I have found that the 'story' I have apparently copied from is actually a Next Generation Role-Play.

I can hand-on-heart say that it is impossible for me to have copied this story, even subconsciously, since I have never taken part in or read a role play, Vampire Academy or otherwise. I didn't even realise they existed until a couple of weeks ago, when this story was already nearly finished (I started writing it on New Years Day). I have no inclination to look at these role plays, much less steal from them, as personally the concept doesn't appeal to me. I read fanfic, I write stories, and that's it.

The author whose role-play I have been accused of stealing belongs to Samwysesr, and she has a very clear warning on her profile about what will happen to plagiarists. The reviewer who accused me said that she had contacted this author to inform them of the alleged plagiarism. I am quite a paranoid person and am known for being a terrible worrier, and hate getting in any kind of trouble. I don't cope well in these situations, and have to say I am taking this hard. I'm afraid of getting my stories taken down, account deleted and everything else bad that happens to alleged 'plagiarists'. I know I have nothing to hide and that this story is completely my own, but it is in my nature to always think the worst.

I will be PMing the author I allegedly stole off to try and sort this out, I already reviewed their story to explain yesterday, and hopefully they will understand that I have done nothing wrong. I hope that by explaining myself, this will all work out alright.

However, for now, I'm so sorry to say that I won't be updating any of my existing stories, or putting up new ones. I'm not even sure if I'll ever get this sorted (there's my pessimism showing through). I won't add anything new to my stories in case my account gets taken away- I would lose enough as it is.

I hope that everything can be resolved soon, and that I'll be able to reward you for your patience with a flood of updates in the near future.

Thank you so much to those of you are supporting me with this- please look out for updates what is happening. Please stay in touch via reviews- I feel alone in this, but your support is helping me so much. I hope everything will be alright and I can remain on this site with you great people.

Just to reiterate, the story under scrutiny is 'Next Generation: Change'. I am posting these notes on 3 different stories so I can alert as many of my reader as possible to what is happening, as I know you don't all read all of my stories.

As much as I hate authors notes, I'll probably have another one for you soon. Hopefully with good news. Please bear with me on this, and your patience will be rewarded with lots of new chapters and stories. Until then, stay with me, and keep an eye out for updates.

Thank you, ~ Dimitri's . Smexi . Shewolf x

P.S- Emilie Brown- Thanks for your offer; I'd love to discuss having a cover made once this has all died down and if the future of my stories is secure again.


	9. Chapter 9

**New chapter :) Enjoy.**

**Vampire Academy belongs to Richelle Mead, not me. However the plot and characters for this story are my own. Any similarities to another author's work are purely coincidental.**

**Oh yeah, anything written in ****is in Russian :)**

* * *

Our next class was with Stan, and I was half excited for it, and half dreading it. I mean, I was always up for a fight with the man, but the first day was a little soon for an all-out war to be declared, especially when I hadn't done anything to deserve it. I did still want to pass this class after all.

But on the plus side, the new pupil meant that the only spare seat left in the classroom would have to be filled. Stan had deliberately sat me on my own, right up the front of the classroom, but that plan had now backfired, as Aleks would have to sit next to me. And I knew that Stan didn't speak Russian, though he didn't make it common knowledge, so we could talk as much as we liked and he couldn't call us out on it without revealing what an idiot he was.

Brilliant. I always loved getting one over on Stan.

As we began to filter into the classroom, I hung back like always. I couldn't be on time for one of his lessons, especially if it was the first day of a new year. Might create a bad habit.

"Right everyone, same seats as last year". Stan droned, and there was a few sighs from those stuck next to less-than-desirable people. "And don't even think of switching. I have a desk plan right here."

I shook my head as I finally entered the room. What kind of sadass used a written desk plan as a threat?

I dropped my bag onto the ground with a thud as I slumped back in the chair, and after checking to make sure nobody else was coming, Aleks sat down next to me.

"_This is the annoying guy we hate, right?" _Aleks asked in Russian. I nodded in response, making him slouch a little too. Somebody else to help me torment Stan. I smiled, liking the way he included both of us in hating Stan. But that was how we were- take on one of us, and you take on both.

The teacher's squinty little eyes focussed on Aleks.

"You the new one from Russia?" Stan asked in a bored tone.

"Yes, sir." He replied, earning a kick under the table from me. "_Prosti" _Aleks whispered back, I guess it was just an instant reaction to address him as sir.

"You're not a relation of Hathaway's, are you?"

Belikov, Stan, my name is Belikov. If he thought he might be a relative, it would be through my dad's side. Why not address me as such? It was bad enough anyway, now he looked just plain stupid.

"No, Guardian Alto." And I was glad he wasn't a relative. That would suck.

Stan smiled tightly. "Well then, Mr. Kozlovsky. We might be able to get along after all."

My eyes widened at the blatant insult. What had I done wrong? And by saying that, he was also indirectly insulting my dad, and pretty much the whole Belikov family. What a prick.

"_Is he always this offensive?"_ Aleks asked, frowning as Stan turned around.

"_Nope. Worse." _I clarified, before opening my textbook with a sigh.

"_Really?"_

"_Yeah. And I almost always end up getting sent out."_

Stan whirled around and glared at me.  
"Hathaway? What are you whispering about?"

"I was helping Aleks." I replied innocently.

"And you couldn't speak English because..."

"Because she was translating for me." Aleks jumped in, quick to think up bullshit as I was.

"I wasn't aware you weren't fluent in English." Stan said, raising his eyebrow.

"I am. It's not my fault that your sentence structure and use of conjugations is so poor."

There was a general murmur of 'burn' and 'owned' around the classroom.

"My English is better than yours." Stan countered, and I had to stop myself from shaking my head in disappointment at his terrible comeback. Aleks, however, had a reply ready.

"One would expect that. Your English is better than my English. My Russian is better than your Russian. It would also appear that my English is better than your understanding of Russian. In fact, my Mandarin is probably better than your Russian."

Stan seemed to realise he couldn't take on the 2 of us.  
"Fine, you may continue to use Anastasia as a translator. It appears her influence has already rubbed off on you, so there is little I have left to say."

"_Brilliant, so do us a favour and shut up." _I whispered.

Stan glared, and I held my hands up. "Just explaining a little of our past history, Guardian Alto."

He glared for a second longer before turning back to the board, and droning on about Guardian/threat ratios and how we had to be spatially aware at all times. Pretty much a recap session as it was the first one of the year, so I zoned out.

I watched 2 squirrels chasing each other round a tree, and after they left, saw a small brown bird strutting around on the grass. It freaked out and flew away when a huge raven landed behind it.

"Hathaway!"

I jumped, looking back at Stan, just seeing the raven fly away as I turned around. "Stop staring out the window and explain how you would rescue Moroi hostages from a series of 4 linked rooms arranged in a square where the furthest room has one entrance, and there is only one main exit. There are 12 Strigoi with 4 situated here, here, and here."

I studied the map he was pointing to on the board, analysing the exits and positions of the threats in relation to the placement of the hostages.

A minute later, I gave him my answer.

And like the supportive teacher he was, Stan snorted, shaking his head in despair. I swear he was one more word away from a facepalm.

"An... admirable effort, Hathaway. I wouldn't have expected anything less from you- or anything more. A harebrained scheme planned to perfection, but impossible to carry out."

I felt anger rising in me. "What?! That was a perfect answer."

"Oh? Based on what roundabout logic?"

"Based on the rescue mission that you were a part of almost 20 years ago. The diagram is a simplified plan of the caves, the same number of hostages, and the same number of Guardians entering, but less threats needing to be neutralised. And in your scenario, all the hostages are alive."

For a second Stan looked surprised that I had studied the attack in so much detail, but I had made it my goal to be just like my parents when I became a Guardian. To achieve that, I had to think like them, not just fight like them.

Then a sneer fell into place over Stan's lips.

"And what about those that _didn't_ make it out of the caves alive? It was a less than perfect rescue that you have planned yours on."

I flinched at what he was implying, and felt an overwhelming urge to punch that jumped-up asshole in the face. A few people around the room mumbled something in response to what he had said, realising how bad it was. Instead of getting to and decking him like I wanted to, I balled up my fist under the table, and answered him.

"All the _hostages_ made it out alive. They come first, remember? That was the task you set me, you said nothing about needing to get all the Guardians out. Wouldn't you call that a success?"

I should have stopped there, but I couldn't. "Actually, we already know the answer to that, and we know exactly what you would do in that situation." He paled a little. "But don't worry; it wouldn't happen like that again if _I _was in charge of the rescue. Because _I'd go back."_

Aleks put a hand over my shaking fist under the table, which helped me to control my raging temper and desire to kill the stupid prick. The bell went before Stan could breathe enough to be able to form words. Instead, he just gave me a jerky nod, before choking out "Class dismissed" a few seconds later.

I grabbed my bag, not bothering to pack my books in it, but just carrying them out of the classroom. Aleks followed close behind me, and Mason and Lily trailed after us.

"Anya, Stan was being-" I cut him off.

"Whatever. I don't want to go into it right now. He's already screwed up enough of my day, I don't want him ruining it when he's not even here."

The next 2 lessons passed pretty uneventfully, unless you count shaving off 2 seconds off my best running time in gym.

I was the last one to the lunch table, on account of having to wait for more donuts to be brought out. At at least they were still warm.

Sophia eyes the piled-up junk food on my plate.

"Stan piss you off?"

I was about to spoon a load of rice into my mouth, but put it down after she spoke. I contemplated how weird it would be to eat a donut before the main meal, and after remembering the conversation, took a bite out of it. Fortunately, Lily answered for me.

"It was awful! He kept insulting her by referring to Rose like usual, but also brought Dimitri into it."  
I nodded in agreement, signalling her to carry on.  
"Then he made her plan battle strategy for basically the same situation as the Cave rescue, you know, the one Eddie was a hostage in. And when Anya set up a perfect plan, he made a crack about how if they followed her plan, some Guardians wouldn't make it out alive, like last time."

Marina stabbed at her food hard enough to make the table shake. "What a prick."

"Exactly." I replied. "And I swear he was verging on blaming mom for what happened, seeing as it was her idea to go in the first place. And it was Stan that held her back." I spat.

"I know!" Mason agreed. "If your mom hadn't tried to rescue her friend, we wouldn't be here." He said, looking at Marina.

"Nor us." Lily added. "Twisted as it is, if Rose hadn't gone to Russia and needed an Alchemist, mom would never have met dad."

"Mom might never have become Queen, and probably would have waited to have kids, if she didn't go crazy first." Sophia pointed out.

"Uh, hello. If the bond hadn't broken, my mom would probably have ended up in Tarasov or something for going crazy, or maybe ended up in another continent to dad. That's assuming she still actually managed to save dad in the first place."

Aleks just sat there sort of awkwardly, seeing how he didn't have the same family ties. "Yeah, I'd probably still be alive." Then he seemed to remember something. "Though apparently I was conceived the night of the Queen's coronation."

"Eew" echoed around the table, and I cringed. "Why would you even know that?" I asked incredulously.

Aleks shuddered. "I know, it's not brilliant. But Mom said that dad visited for the first time in 3 months that night, and she didn't see him again until I was born. So it doesn't take a genius to realise it."

Well that was fair enough I guess.

Jet raised his water glass.  
"Here's to unlucky turns, gross facts and unlikely miracles for bringing us together."

All with the same look of weirdness on or faces, we clinked our glasses together, and I finally got to eat.

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**Next chapter up soon. Please review :)**


	10. Chapter 10

**Okay, so you might recognise this chapter from before. It was one of the ones I put up too early by mistake. If you've read it before, just bear with me becuase the next one will be up tomorrow morning :) But anyway, enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: Richelle Mead owns Vampire Academy.**

* * *

"I'm so bored."

Sophia and I were in our room, lying across my bed with our heads hanging upside down over the end, hair trailing on the floor.

"Same." Sophia agreed.

It was Friday night, and we had 4 hours before curfew. The others were either having a 'guys only' Xbox fest, or were trying to catch up on Language homework.

"Screw this." I said, sitting up. "Let's go get the others. I have a plan."

Sophia pulled herself up too, turning to face me.

"I saw we bust the girls out of the library, and break up the guys' night."

Sophia grinned evilly, and we made our way down to the library where Lily was helping Marina with her calculus homework.  
Lily was in the middle of explaining something, but Marina was resting her head in her hands, looking as though she was trying, and failing, to keep her eyes open.

We hurried through the busy library, and I put a hand on Marina's shoulder, waking her up.

"Hey, why don't you leave this for now? I think you're past the optimum learning point now anyway."

She nodded, and even Lily smiled in relief. Marina wasn't always the most attentive student.

We then made our way across to Mason and Ash's room. I could hear the dying screams f virtual zombies and groans of frustration from dying players from outside the door. It was locked.

Sophia went to knock, but I had a better idea. Pulling my lock picking set out of my pocket, I carefully and quietly opened the door just enough to squeeze through.

"Grrr!" I shouted as I leapt at Ash, arms and hands outstretched in fake claws.

He screeched as I grabbed his shoulders from behind, causing everyone else to burst out laughing.

Holding Ash around the neck in an arm lock, I looked over his shoulder at the others.

"If you're feeling any braver than little Firefly here, then I hereby challenge you all to a game of extreme truth or dare."

"Woo!" Shouted Mason, jumping up off the sofa and twirling around, pumping his fists in the air.

"Not cool bro." Marina called from the doorway, just as Sophia shouted "camp".

Mason stopped twirling, but replied; "Oh well, I'll regain my manhood by doing an insane dare. I'm so gonna win this."

I heard Lily do an evil laugh. "Ok, well I call choosing your dare. If you're man enough, that is."

"It is on."

I rolled my eyes. "Well, get your ass out the door then. If you want to actually get anything done before curfew, we need to get moving and start this thing."

So we all filed out of the guys dorm, across the quad and into mine and Sophia's room. Once everyone was sitting down, I started on the rules.

"So you have to do a truth, then a dare. All dares will be filmed. Whichever one you choose, you have to stick with, even if it's hideous. If you want to forfeit doing the dare, you have to drink something that the rest of us make for you whist on camera. If you lie at any point, Sophia will know and it counts as an instant forfeit."

Aleks interrupted. "What if she lies?"

I waved my hand vaguely. "I'll know." Sophia was the only one out of my friends who knew the full extent of my powers, and I wanted to keep it that way until I had figured them out a little better.

"Alright, who's going first?" Ash asked.

I went over to my drawers and took out an octagonal dice I had been keeping in there for years, after mom gave it to me.

"Soph-1. Mason-2. Marina-3. Me-4. Aleks-5. Jet-6. Lily-7. Ash-8. Remember your number."

I rolled the dice and it landed on 5. It was Aleks' turn.

"Aleks, truth or dare?" I asked.

He laughed. "Since I've never played with you before, I'm gonna have to say truth."

I was about to tease him for being so pathetic when Marina's hand shot up. "Let me ask!" She begged.

I nodded, and she continued. "Do you have a girlfriend?"

He shook his head. "No, I don't."

Her eyes lit up for a second, before I shot her a death glare. Then she asked if he was gay.

"What? No! I'm just not looking for a relationship right now." He replied, causing Marina to shoot me a sympathetic look. I glared back; the punch in the stomach bad enough as it was.

To cover up any awkwardness, I rolled the dice again. It landed on 2- Mason.

Mason grinned. "Dare."

Lily's hand shot up, and she leaned over to talk to Marina for a moment, who burst out laughing, nodding furiously.

"Mason, I dare you to call Guardian Belikov and tell him that you got Anya pregnant, but you don't want anyone else to know it's yours."

Mason paled, and Aleks looked shocked.

"You girls are scary! You might as well have given him a death sentence."

I shrugged. "Just the way we play it. If you're scared..."  
He was quiet after that as Mason pulled his phone out of his pocket. But since I could see Aleks' point, I sent my mom a quick 'heads up- incoming dare' text so she could start damage control, and not kill Mason herself.

With shaking hands, Mason scrolled through the contacts until he came to my dad.  
I set the video camera to record as he put the phone on loudspeaker. We all held our breath as it rang, and a voice came onto the other end.

"_Belikov."_

Mason's eyes widened, searching the room in panic as though he were looking for an escape.

"Uh, hi, Guardian Belikov. This is Mason."

"_Mason? Is everything alright?"_

"Well, that, uh, depends. I have something I need to tell you. It's really important."

"_If you don't mind me asking, why tell me and not your dad?"_

"Because it's about Anya."

There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Mason looked like he was struggling to breath.

"_What about Anya, Mason?"_

Mason took a deep breath, looking to us for encouragement. Or possibly mercy. Needless to say, he got none.

"Anya's pregnant, and I'm the father. I'm the one telling you as after this, I want nothing to do with either of them."

There was silence on the other end of the phone. One second, two seconds, three seconds...

This string of Russian swearwords being shouted down the phone made everyone flinch, and I caught Aleks' eye. His face was the same as mine- like he hadn't heard this many swearwords. Ever.  
Then Aleks nodded appreciatively after a particularly colourful outburst, and I made a mental note to use that one later. Thanks, dad.

Mason broke. "Uh, April fools! Ahahah..." He laughed nervously, whist we all gave him WTF looks.

"It's not even April, dipshit." Jet told him, and Mason shrugged helplessly.

Still, it calmed my dad down long enough to hear someone else pick up the phone.

"_Right. You've had your fun, and I'm sure it's all very amusing on your end. It sort of is here, but Dimitri doesn't quite see it that way yet."  
_I could actually hear the hint of a smile in mom's voice.

" _Mason, I would suggest lying low for the next couple of weeks around Court, actually the same goes for the rest of you as well."_

"Is he actually going to calm down?" Sophia asked, at the same time as Mason said, "Is he gonna kill me?"

"_Come on Mason, grow a set. You've done the hard part. And yes, he will calm down."_

"How?" Marina asked.

"_I'm sure I'll be able to persuade-"_

"Eew, mom, no!" I cut in. "We don't care how, just don't let him kill Mason. Aside from that, we don't want to know the details."

"_Fair enough. Mason, as long as you stay away from our bedroom, you'll be fine."_

"Gross! Bye now mom. Thanks for the damage control!" I shouted. Before I could end the call, I heard her laughing, and realised this was the punishment for calling them.  
I threw the phone on the bed, grossed out.

"I feel sorry for anyone who tries to speak to them in the next hour."

I threw a sock at Ash for saying that, but silently agreed.

"Eurgh, Anya. I don't want your stinking sock in my face." He complained, throwing it back.

"Hey, that's mine!" Sophia shouted, reclaiming the lost sock and throwing it in the general direction of her wardrobe.

"Okay, who's next?" Lily said, sensing a war between the twins about to break out.

Mason broke out of his staring contest with his sister to answer, smiling evilly. "Mari, is it true you like Angelo Ramirez?"

Marina raised an eyebrow. "Sure I like him. As a friend..."

"I mean _like _like. As in-"

"I know what you mean by _like_. And it's really none of your business anyway." She said, giving it away.

Mason smiled. "I think that is avoidance of a question _and_ almost a lie. Do you want to change your answer, or can we get the blender out already?"

Marina broke under the threat of the drink. "Alright, yes, I like Angelo. _Like _like." She sneered, mocking Mase, who leaned back with a smug 'I-knew-it' smile.

Marina pointed to Sophia next.

"Truth or dare, Soph?" She asked, knowing perfectly well what the answer would be.

"Dare, duh."

Marina thought for a minute, before leaning over to discuss with Lily and I. A slw grin slid over her lips as I told her my idea.

"Ok Sophia, I dare you to go to the gym and wreak havoc. You must put at least one item of underwear on each practice dummy and leave them in inappropriate positions, write Harry Potter jokes on the walls in silly string and replace all the weapons with twigs and other useless things."

Sophia just laughed. "Alright, that sounds like it could be fun. As long as Anya can help, because I know she's dying to."

I grinned. "Sure, as long as you take the blame if you get caught."

Sophia made her way over to the chest of drawers. "I'll get the stuff together then."

After a seconds thought, I called her back. "I have a better idea- instead of using our stuff and maybe not getting it back, we sneak into the laundry room on the way to the gym and steal other people's underwear. That'll be even funnier."

Jet pretended to frown. "That's evil, Anya."

"Nope." I said. "It's only evil if we steal embarassing dirty ones."

"Eew." Sophia interjected. "No way are we stealing dirty stuff. Straight from the wash only."

I shrugged. "I don't care. Just grab the red silly string and that bag, and we can go." I instructed, pointing to the objects as I named them. "We'll get sticks and stuff on the way."  
Grabbing my camera, I headed out the door. Everyone followed close behind after Sophia used a quick burst of Spirit to make us nondescript to any passers-by.

This would be fun.

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**Please review :)**


	11. Chapter 11

**As I said before, you may have already the last chapter, from when I updated a while ago, but in the wrong order :3 I can't actually remember if I put this one up or not. I don't think I did. But hey, if you did, then you can reread it :P I know the next chapter is completely unseen :)**

**Disclaimer: Richelle Mead owns Vampire Academy**

* * *

As we stepped through the door into the warm air that preceded sunrise, I stopped to take a deep breath. The scent of pine was heavy on the breeze, fresh and cool. It was nice after the stuffy air of the dorms.

"Well don't just space out- this was your idea!" Ash said as he poked me in the back. I turned around and slapped his hand away, causing him to cradle it against his chest like it had actually hurt him.

"I wasn't spacing out, I was strategically planning our next move." I told him, before starting to walk in the opposite direction to where we had already been going.

I could hear Marina giggling as we snuck in the door of the laundry room. Heading over to the first drier in the line, I cautiously stuck my arm in. Hopefully I wouldn't find something really gross in there.

Fortunately, all that came out was a few t-shirts and pairs of jeans. Judging by the colours, they belonged to a girl.

"Ok, I had my turn. Now someone else has to take the plunge."

As Mason stepped up the next drier, I spied a full basket up at the far end. The closer I got to it, the surer I became that this was what I was looking for. Kicking the basket over, and about 10 pairs of pants fell out. The underwear kind. All boys, and all unwashed.

Covering my hand in a nearby clean t-shirt, I pushed the underwear into one of the bags I was carrying. Following the laughs of the others, I saw that they had pulled out another load of laundry from a different drier.

I picked up one of the fluorescent pink bras from the floor, checking the initials written on the label. I didn't need to though, I recognised this one.

I snorted. "I always knew Brook's boobs were fake. How much padding has she got in this?" I asked rhetorically, as it was clear that the answer was _lots._

Marina took the bra from me, laughing as she looked at the size.

"32C my ass. This is a 30A, that lying whore."

Mason shook his head sadly. "It's like those packets of crisps that you open, only to find that half of it is filled with air. Such a disappointment."

Rolling my eyes at him, I stuffed a final load of clothes into the now bulging bag.

"Yeah, Smoky 'Fake-on' crisps. Or 'Sleaze' and Onion, maybe."

As we were leaving, Jet found what appeared to be Stan's unwashed gym socks. We debated who would carry them, before deciding that the only fair thing would be to evenly distribute them between us. The stink lingered, and we practically ran to the gym to dump them.

The doors weren't open when we got there, but after a minute of my ninja skills and lock picking kit we got in.

Since it had been my idea to start this whole game, I took charge.

"Jet , Ash and Marina- make a giant penis on the floor using twigs. Lily and Sophia- take care of the silly string. Mase & Aleks, help me get the clothes on the dummies."

After bickering whether to make the dummies cross-dressers or not, we decided to put the girls stuff on the male models and vice versa. That way it would be more immediately obvious something was up. Some of the dummies were already wearing basic clothes, though they were pretty beat up from being staked, kicked and punched so many times.

After putting one of Brooke's bras on an overweight male dummy and shoving a redheaded female into a pair of the unwashed pants, I decided to shake things up a bit.  
I draped a pair of pants over the next guy's head, and taped Stan's socks to the sides of his head like floppy ears. I then pulled his existing trousers down to his ankles and put a bra between his legs like a jockstrap. Grabbing the can of silly string I had saved for myself, I did my best to write 'Sex Pest' across the chest.

I stepped back to admire my work just as I heard someone come up behind me.

"Nice. Very... original."

I turned around to see Aleks grinning behind me. I smiled graciously.

"Thank you. Let's see what you've done with yours."

Aleks pointed out 3 dummies to the right of mine. 2 had been done like my first 2, but one the dummy that looked like a 10-year-old girl, he's put a bra obviously stuffed with Stan's smelly socks. He'd also switched her leggings for a tiny black skirt.

"I like it. May I?" I asked, holding up the can of hot pink silly string.

"You may."

On her stomach, I sprayed the word 'ho'.

"How can you write so well with that stuff?" Aleks asked me.

I shrugged. "Years of practice. It's like spray paint but you can't get in trouble for it, since it just rubs off. And it looks badass."

"Let's see how it compares to the others'."

Together we went to see how everyone else was getting on. Mason was just finishing his dummies as apparently he'd been having trouble doing up the bra straps. Real smooth, Mase.

Carefully stepping around the giant floor-penis, which had come along quite well, we stood looking up at the 'wall art' the girls had created.

Silly string of every colour coloured the gym walls, almost completely hiding the white brickwork. It was just possible to see the outlines of 8 figures in the mess of sticky string. That gave me another idea.

Picking up a can of white string, I checked to see if there was any left. When I found there was, I went over to the crash mat in the corner and drew the outline of a person, like a chalk figure at a crime scene.

Pleased that my work here was done, I made my way to the doors where everyone else was already waiting.

"Remember Soph, this was your dare. You have to take the fall for this one if need be."

"Yes ma'am." She replied, saluting me. I rolled my eyes and walked back out into the growing sunlight.

Once we were back in my room, it was Sophia's turn to choose the next person to do a dare.

"Aleks, I dare you to go to Stan's room and say you're feeling homesick. When he asks how he can help, you say that he reminds you of your mother, so can he please read you a bedtime story and sing you a lullaby. When he inevitably tells you to get lost, hug him and start crying, saying that he sounded just like your mommy- she never loved you either."

We were all laughing by the time Ash finished saying the dare. Except Aleks of course- he had a look of grim determination on his face.

"Oh, and you have to wear your most babyish pyjamas, or whatever."

Aleks groaned, heading back to his room. I laughed again, as I had a feeling I knew what he would come back wearing.

"You better do this properly, Sasha. I know you brought them with you."

Just as I had predicted, Aleks came back in 5 minutes later wearing Care Bear pyjamas. Before anyone could speak, he growled; "Blame Anya. I teased her once about her My Little Pony pyjamas, so she bought me these as vengeance."

"Aren't they girls?" Ash choked out.

Aleks nodded. "Size 18. But the legs are still way too short."

Another round of laughter ensued as he brought the fact that they only reached half way down his shins to our attention.

I stood up and walked to the door, camera in hand.

"Come on then, let's go find your 'mommy'." I teased, poking Aleks in the chest, right on the bear's nose."

"If we see anyone on the way there, I'm going to kill you Nastya." Aleks threatened. I just smiled in response.

"I'd like to see you try.

As we reached Stan's door, the rest of us hid around the corner whilst Aleks strode up to it. He looked surprisingly calm for someone knocking on their teacher's door wearing care bear pjs, but I knew that this was just his way of doing things. Put on a cocky face and hope no one sees beyond the confident smile. Even if inside, you feel like you're falling apart.

I was dragged out of my thoughts as Aleks reached up and knocked on the door, loudly.

After a moment, we heard Stan shuffling around inside. Oh shit, I really hope he doesn't open the door naked or something. My vomiting would give us away.

Thankfully, Stan opened the door wearing a blue flannel dressing gown. And honest-to-goodness carpet slippers. Tartan ones. Was Stan secretly an OAP?

I returned my attention to Stan's face as he spoke.

"Kozlovsky? What the hell do you want at this time of night? It's past curfew." Stan whisper-shouted.

"I- I'm sorry Sir. It's just, I'm feeling homesick, Sir."

Stan looked unimpressed. "Well, I'm sorry to hear that America isn't satisfactory. Why can't you go speak to Hathaway, have a chat about your homeland? What do you expect me to do?"

This was going perfectly. Stan was so predictable. Aleks took this as his cue.

"I could talk to Anya, but I miss my mama! And you remind me of her, Sir. Will you sing me a lullaby?"

I watched as Stan's face turned pink, then red, then purple.

"No, I will not sing you a lullaby! Get out of my sight!"

Aleks sniffled. "You really do remind me of mama. She says that to me too. Thank you, Sir."

Before Stan could react, Aleks hugged him round the middle. Stan froze, completely still.  
My eyes were watering with the effort not to laugh, and I was having a hard time keeping the camera still.

With a final sniff, Aleks turned away, wiping his nose on his sleeve. Stan stared after him with a look of shock still on his face.

As Aleks turned the corner, we all ran back down the hall and out of the Guardian dorms. As we hit the fresh air, we all let out the laughter that we had been desperately trying to hold back.

Turning the camera towards myself, I looked into the lens.

"And there you have it, people. Stan Alto, cold and heartless to the core. Shouting at a boy wearing care bears pyjamas 3 sizes too small, upset because he missed his mommy. Like if you agree that men like this shouldn't be allowed at boarding schools."

Aleks came and put his arm around my shoulders, leaning in close to the camera.

"And that was Aleksandr Kozlovsky, the best actor this side of Russia. Available for films, plays, or pranks on teachers. Glad to be of service."

I pushed him out of the frame before turning the camera off.

We were still laughing when we got back to my room, and couldn't speak properly for another 5 minutes. Aleks then dared Marina to ask out Angelo during training tomorrow. After a lot of protests, she finally said yes.

Aleks wasn't trying to be mean and embarrass her- he'd told me that he's heard Angelo saying that he liked her, but didn't have the courage to ask her out. Aleks knew he'd say yes, and was just setting them up together.

It was then Mason's turn for a truth, since he had done his dare first. After thinking for a little while, Marina asked; "Do you like Anya, and would you date her."

Mason looked thoughtful, clearly unsure how to answer this without things getting weird.

"Yes, Anya is an amazing person. She's really hot, and if she was anyone else, I'd totally go for her. She's like a sister to me, and I wouldn't want to ruin our friendship. Nothing is worth risking what we already have."

He said the last part whilst looking at me, and I got up and hugged him.

"I love you too Mase. You're an amazing friend."

Ash fake gagged. "Stop with the cuddles already. Between that and the Care Bears, I'm worried about you barfing rainbows on me."

I caught Aleks' eye, and pulled Mason with me as we enveloped Ash in a huge hug.

"Aaw, Ash! I love you sooooo much!" I crooned. "You're just the cutest little love bug ever, dumpling!"

Ash wriggled free, stepping back with his hands up. "Ok, do what you like. Just don't drag me into it."

After Mason asked Lily about her most embarrassing moment, she then asked Ash if he would rather be left in a rowboat a mile from the nearest shore, or be put in a tank full of snakes, worms and spiders.

"Tank of creepy things every time. I could just incinerate them if they got too close."

Ash's fear of water was actually hilarious. When he was little, Christian actually had to bribe him with candy to get him into the bath. According to mom, Lissa,(though she never admitted it), used slight compulsion on him.

Ash must have noticed me smirking, since he turned to me.

"Truth or dare, Anya?"

Judging by the fact I had just hugged him and deliberately pissed him off, I knew that a dare would be a bad idea right now.

"Truth."

Ash's eyes gleamed with what I presumed to be an evil idea.

"Have you ever kissed a guy?"

For a second, I was mortified that he had asked me this. The girls felt the same, and Sophia cast an anxious glance at Aleks. The guy in question looked confused as to why Ash would ask me such a, in his view, redundant question. I doubted that the possibility that he might have been my first kiss had ever crossed his mind. He probably thought I was a bit of a slut like everyone else here did, best friends excluded.

Fortunately for me, I recovered quickly enough to cover this issue. I rolled my eyes, and plastered a cocky smile on my face.

"Yeah." I said in a bored voice. "Maybe you should leave your coffin sometimes, Dracula. Maybe then you wouldn't be centuries behind everyone else. Wake up and join us in the land of the living."

This seemed to smooth over the tension in the air, though Mason caught my eye. Only the girls knew about what had happened in Russia- why would I tell the guys something like that?

So I just shrugged to Mason, and used my turn to get revenge on Ash.

"Alright Burnout. Truth or dare?"

Set back my last answer and his failure to embarrass me, he mumbled 'Dare.'

"Alright. Tomorrow lunchtime, I dare you to run into the cafeteria singing 'call me maybe' as loud as you can, after all of us have drawn on you, dressed you and done your makeup. Then you have to fall to your knees in front of Stan and give him a piece of paper with your number on it, and a big lipstick kiss on the paper, before blowing him a kiss and sitting down like nothing has happened."

I knew Ash would hate this dare; he was happy to break almost any school rule as long as he didn't have to make an idiot of himself in front of others.

Ash avoided looking at me, instead taking the opportunity to dare his sister's boyfriend.

"If I have to do that, then after I'm finished with Call Me Maybe, you have to walk into lunch wearing a pair of Aleks' jeans that are too big for you, held up with a belt. Summer will then use her Earth magic to make the belt break, and the trousers fall down. Then, you sing 'down parody' by The Midnight Beast."

Jet shrugged. He didn't care about doing stupid things in public. "Whatever, sounds fun. Anya, I dare you to dress up as a spy and break into Kirova's office, get into the filing cabinet and get all of our student files. Take pictures of them on your phone, then come back and show us."

I grinned. This would be awesome. "Thanks for the best dare ever. I'll be right back."

I dashed over to the wardrobe, pulling out a bag from the bottom. I then went into the bathroom to get changed, before opening the door slowly.

"It's not exactly a spy, but it's the best I could do."

Slowly, I stepped out from behind the door, watching in satisfaction as the guys' eyes bugged out of their heads at the sight of me in a PVC Catwoman suit. I slowly let my man-eater smile slide over my lips.

"You see something you like?"

Aleks was the only one who nodded, the other guys made a point of looking away. Aleks made no effort to take his eyes away from my cleavage. Good, that was sort of the point.

Crossing the room to the window, stopping only to retrieve my phone and lock picking set and shove them down my bra, I stepped out onto the ledge.

"I'll be back." I said, before jumping out of the window.

I landed on the branch of the huge tree just outside my window. Dropping down onto a lower limb, then the floor, I set off at a run towards the administrative building.

Getting through the door was easy, as the guard was drowsy and I still had Sophia's charm from earlier keeping me nondescript.

I took the 3rd corridor on the right, and stopped at the door right at the end, where 'Headmistress' was written in the frosted glass.

After a couple of minutes picking the lock, I was in. I spied my target in the far corner- the huge grey filing cabinet. Another minute of picking, and the drawers slipped open. Fortunately, there was only one lock for the whole cabinet, which would save me time.

I hit Belikov, Castile and Dragomir in the first drawer, Ivashkov in the one under that. On impulse, I looked under Hathaway for my mom's file, thinking it would make some interesting reading.

I laughed quietly to myself as I read her file. Some of the things that she'd done in the years before she'd run away were hilarious, and I took a photo of the page to use as blackmail- and inspiration for myself.

After photographing the pages of our own files, which paled in comparison to that of my mother, I put them back and was about to close the drawer when I remembered that Aleks' file was also here.

I didn't expect there to be much in it except grades from St. Basils and the details of his transfer, but when I pulled it out, I was surprised to find that the brown folder contained almost as many pages as Lily's had.

Curious, I pulled out a sheet that was covered in text, stapled to several others. One sheet had the official Guardian's seal in the corner, which I had never seen on a school document before- only on mom or dad's reports.

Before I could investigate further, a vision flashed before my eyes. The guard would be here any minute.

Shoving the paper back into the folder, I returned it to the filing cabinet and licked the drawer again. I slipped back out the door, and instead of chancing the front desk again, opted for the window. They only opened from the inside, so it hadn't been an option before. Though it was very useful now.

When I got back to the room, we spent a good hour laughing over the pictures I had taken of our files. Sadly, my mom's was funnier than any of ours. We made a pact to change that, and agreed to recycle some of mom's ideas- especially the ones concerning Stan. It was no wonder why he hated her, really.

As I lay in bed after everyone had left, I was so exhausted from running and laughing so much that I realised I had forgotten to ask Aleks about the mysterious document in his file.

_I'll ask him tomorrow_ I told myself before drifting off to sleep, and the memory of the file drifted into the land of forgotten things.

* * *

**Please review. I like reviews. Almost as much as I like doughnuts :)**


	12. Chapter 12

**Sorry for taking a while to update, I know I said the next chapter would be up sooner, but there were unexpected delays -.- . This is the first chance I've had to get this chapter up, so don't hate me too much. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Academy. It belongs to Richelle Mead, and the songs mentioned belong to their respective owners.**

* * *

At lunch the next day, most of us were sitting around our table, anxiously anticipating the arrival of our final 2 members. Summer was ready with her Earth magic, and we'd all attacked Ash with Sharpies a minute ago. The finished result was ridiculously funny, and it would only get better.

After a few minutes of mindless chatter, we heard the unmistakable start of 'Call Me Maybe' playing over the school speaker system. Everyone looked confused as to what was happening, and the teachers looked pissed that someone (us) had managed to get into the supposedly secure sound system (again).

The confusion soon turned to laughter as Ash threw the double doors open. He strutted down the gap between the tables as the first verse went on, but on the 'hey!', he jumped and started dancing and pointing to people.

Ash was wearing a pair of his fluorescent pink boxers and a bra that we had found to match. He had long, unmatched socks pulled haphazardly up to his shins, and his floppy black hair was put back in loads of tiny, multicoloured hair bands.

All over his body we had written things such as 'ass licker' and 'chode sucker', and my personal favourite 'fire hose', with an arrow pointing to his crotch. That had been one of mine.

So overall, he looked absolutely ridiculous.

The instructors looked at each other, deciding which one of them would have to deal with the Queen's son, who was currently making an utter dick of himself. Nobody noticed that I was recording the whole thing on my camera. There was no risk of anybody else recording it and tarnishing the Dragomir reputation any further as we weren't allowed phones in the lunch hall, and no one wanted to risk it being confiscated for a week plus detention if they were caught with it.

To my sheer delight, it was Stan who stood up to deal with the crazy Ash, who was still dancing like a lunatic. Give him his due; though he hated doing things like this, he really got stuck into them. He shared my view that if you were going to make a dick of yourself in public, you might as well have some fun with it and get some laughs.

Stan reached Ash just as he shouted 'Call me maybe' a second time. I was completely stunned when Ash ground against Stan for a second, before shoving a piece of paper in his shirt pocket, winking at him, and darting out of the hall.

Stan stood there, frozen for the second time in 24 hours. He shook his head in bewilderment before heading back to the teacher's table, muttering about how he'd 'get that little git later.'

Just as the uproar began to die down, Jet walked into the hall, looking confused.

"What just happened? What did I miss?" He complained.

He didn't have time to receive an answer before his belt popped undone (Summer's handiwork), and the dark jeans he was wearing slid to his ankles.

This started another round of laughter, but after a moment Jet just shrugged. I started him off on the song he had been dared to sing, with a 'wayyy-ohhh."

Turning to me, Jet grinned, and began to sing

**You're causing some tension  
You've got their attention  
No need to mention  
Baby that your trousers just fell down.  
Just keep on walking,  
Keeping them talking,  
they'll never know your trousers just fell down.  
Do what a man would,  
And show'em your manhood.  
even though your trousers just fell down.**

That was when the rest of us joined in with the 'doooooooown, dooooooooooooown's.

**My trousers dropped to my knees  
I just feel like free willy  
**_**behold  
**_**I bought these jeans from overseas  
I thought that they were Burburys  
but turns out they were shmurburys.**

**You're causing some tension  
You've got their attention  
No need to mention  
Baby that your trousers just fell down.**

We all joined in with the last verse as Jet reached the table. Just as soon as he had started, he stopped singing, pulling his trousers up and re-buckling the belt.

Then he sat down like nothing had happened, kissed Sophia on the cheek, and began eating the food we had got for him earlier.**  
**After a moment, he seemed to realise that everyone was staring at him.

"What are you looking at? Sorry, the sneak previews over. You're lucky you even got to see that much of my beautiful body."

Everyone turned around and began to gossip amongst themselves, and the staff seemed to be speaking in despair about what they could do to us.

Not much, really. We hadn't broken any rules, not really. We were fine.

* * *

Of course, that was until we got into Stan's class that afternoon. I was spaced out as usual, as Stan was droning on with some lecture about respect and some other crap. I'd give Stan respect when he earned it. I took to looking out the window again, and again saw that raven that had been walking around last time.

"Hathaway!"

I jumped, turning to Stan. "Yes?" I answered quickly, not wanting an even longer lecture.

Stan slowly walked over to my desk, taking his time with every step in a way I supposed he thought was menacing. He stopped right in front of me, bending down so I got a full close-up view of his beautiful face.

"What are you doing Hathaway?" He demanded.

I tried to bite back a snarky retort, but failed.

"Contemplating whether it is medically possible for someone to die of boredom. I think I was getting close to a major scientific breakthrough there- I could practically see the light from the other side."

Stan narrowed his eyes, hatred rolling off him.

"Get out."

Picking my bag up, which I hadn't even bothered to unpack since we hadn't actually written anything, I swung it over my shoulder.

"Willingly. I'll call Guardian HQ on my way out. Next time they're on a raid; they can just get you to lecture the Strigoi to death."

Stan went tomato red. "Go!"

I grinned, giving him a thumbs-up. "There you go- put that much passion in your teaching and maybe your class won't fall asleep on you."

After saying that, I bolted for the door before Stan had the chance to put me in detention for the rest of my life.

...

The rest of the day went pretty uneventfully, until I was doing my homework on my bed and my laptop flashed, telling me I had a Skype call incoming.

I closed my maths book, and opened the lid. I accepted the call, sitting down and making sure the webcam was in the right place.

"Hey, mom. What's up."

She didn't answer, instead looking at me through the camera with narrowed eyes.

"Why did I receive a call today from the school, telling me about you getting thrown out of a lesson?"

I rolled my eyes, blowing a strand of hair out of my face. "Look, it was just Stan. He was pissing me off, alright? Don't rage at me for it."

Mom's face softened. "Look, I know that you hate Stan and he isn't very fond of you- believe me, I know how much of a jackass he can be. But _please_ try not to get thrown out for a little while. Next time you might not be so lucky about when the phone rings. If I hadn't switched shifts to take Lissa to the mall tomorrow, your dad would have answered the phone. And then you might be having a different conversation now."

I sighed. "Yeah, I know. Are you going to tell him about this?"

Mom shook her head. "I don't see why I need to this time. But if it happens again, I will have to get him involved, alright? Promise me you'll try to stay out of trouble with Stan."

"But it's not my fault!" I shouted indignantly at the screen. "He's such a douchebag that he'd kick me out even if I didn't retaliate. The other day he-" I trailed off before I told her about that first lesson back this term.

"What? Tell me, and I can rub his face in it next parent's evening."

So I did, and let me tell you, was she pissed.

"That bastard! Right, thanks for telling me Anya. Next time he says something like that, tell him you'll wipe the floor with him, then rip his head off so the floor gets dirty again, then use his worthless ass as a mop to clean it all up with."

I laughed at the mental image. "Alright mom, I'll remember that one. And I'll even say that I'll use his dick as a duster and his balls to make decorations afterwards."

Mom smiled indulgently. "That's my girl. You tell that dick what'll happen if he messes with you."

"I'm on it."

I closed my laptop, leaning back and spinning round in my desk chair. There were worse reasons for teachers to hate you than because of your parents- that way they just encouraged you to keep doing it when they got a call from the school.

Taking my laptop, I started to make a list of things I wanted for my birthday. It was only a couple of weeks away now. We'd all be going back to Court to see our families since it was on a weekend, and we hadn't been back yet.

After writing 4 things on the list, which took me about half an hour to decide on, I decided to call it a night. Sophia had come back from seeing Jet a minute ago, and had practically collapsed on her bed and fallen asleep.

Just as I turned my light off, my phone flashed. I picked up the message, my heart jumping when I saw it was from Aleks.

_**Night Nastya x**_

A goodnight text- did this mean something? He'd never sent me one before, though I guess he's never needed to. We were either on different time zones, or together.

_**Night Sasha x **_

After a moment's hesitation, I decided to just go for it and send another text.

_**We haven't had much time to talk- how are you really getting on here? **_

A minute later I got his reply.

_**I'm fine. It's just...different here to St. Basils.**_

Well that was vague. But if he didn't want to talk about it, he wouldn't have brought it up. Aleks wasn't one to elaborate unless he needed to.

_**What do you mean?**_

_**I can't really explain it through a text. I'll talk to you tomorrow or whenever we get a chance.**_

I knew that if I let this go now, it could be literally months before he opened up again. Fortunately, I had a way to let us talk now.

_**Meet me by the big tree outside the dorms in 5 minutes. Wear something warm.**_

_**Where are we going?**_

_**You'll see.**_

* * *

**The song in bold that Jet was singing at lunch was an abridged version of 'Down parody' by The Midnight Beast. They're awesome :D But 'Wands' is their best song, followed by 'Quirky' and 'Ninjas' :P**

**Please leave me a review :) **


	13. Chapter 13

**Hey everyone :) Sorry for the wait.**

**And ****ASPFJSD GISHG ISDHFI HAIG AHIAI **

**WHO HAS SEEN THAT PICTURE OF ZOEY AND DANILA?! ON THE OVAM FACEBOOK PAGE?! The caption- 'Remember to breathe...' I FORGOT TO BREATHE FOR A FULL 30 SECONDS.  
I think my brain turned to mush. Heart stopped beating. Everything else frozen.  
IT'S ROSE AND DIMITRI XD**

**Just looking at it again... fangirling so hard in the middle of the night, I just had to put this chapter up in celebration. HAPPY 4TH JULY, PEOPLE :D**

***Disclaimer: Vampire Academy belongs to Richelle Mead***

* * *

_**Meet me by the tree outside the dorms in 5 minutes. Wear something warm.**_

_**Where are we going?**_

_**You'll see.**_

* * *

Aleks was already waiting by the time I got outside. I'd left a note for Sophia telling her where I was in case she woke up and panicked when she saw my empty bed and I didn't return straight away.

"So where are we going at this hour? I wasn't aware St. Vlads had such a vibrant night life."

"Poor Arctic boy. The only nightlife you're used to is 'seal clubbing'."

Aleks laughed at my pathetic joke. "At least that's keeping us fit whilst you Americans just get fat on burgers."

"Hey! You're our turf now, Sasha. We may not all be too agile in a fight, but we can always sit on you and crush you to death."

We walked in comfortable silence back to the girls' dorms, sneaking up the maintenance stairs on the first floor, using my spare key that I had stolen from the caretaker years ago.  
After climbing 5 flights of stairs, we came to the door that led out onto the roof terrace. This part of it was covered in pipes and general old junk that nobody cared about enough to throw away.

"You come here often? I really like what you've done with the place." Aleks quipped.

"That's a shame, because we're not stopping here." I replied seriously, crossing to the far corner of the roof.

I climbed nimbly on top of 2 electrical boxes, pulling myself up onto the tiled ledge. Laying on my stomach on the sun-warmed tiles, I turned to see Aleks following me, albeit more cautiously.

As Aleks pulled himself up beside me, I didn't let myself get distracted by the way the hem of his T-shirt got caught on the tile, lifting up to expose smooth skin and hard muscle.  
I looked away quickly in case I fell off the roof or something.

I got up, and then began carefully walking along the narrow point across where the 2 sides of the roof met. One foot in front of the other, like a tightrope walker, I was thankful for Dhampir coordination and balance.

After waling the 30 metres or so, I jumped down onto the small flat rooftop in front of me.

This was my secret place, that I had found one night when I was about 12. I had been intending to go to Court to see my parents that weekend, but at the last minute they had been sent away on a raid. They hadn't called me the next day to say that they were safe, and I'd been too stressed to stay with everyone else. So I'd climbed up onto the roof to wait for their call, and found this hidden spot that I was pretty sure no one had ever got to before.  
Whilst waiting here, I'd got the call telling me that my parents were alive and well, and ever since then, it had become my place to come when I was stressed, angry, needed to be away from the world, or just wanted some peace and quiet to think.

I loved all my friends dearly, but sometimes I just needed some space. They could be quite full-on sometimes. The only other place or time that I got the feeling of peace like I did on my rooftop was when I was with Aleks. We didn't have to do anything to fill the time, or speak to fill the silence. We just knew that we would always be there for each other.

So bringing Aleks up here was like... well, the rest of the world might as well have never existed. I had all I needed to stay here, in my secret place, forever.

I heard a light thud as Aleks dropped down nest to me.

"Now this is better."

I busied myself taking the tarp off the collapsible crates I kept stuff in. Over the course of several years, I had brought everything up one-by-one, until I had everything I needed here. I had a box with spare coats and blankets, copies of my favourite books, notepads and pens and a sketchbook. There was a sleeping bag, and even a folding chair up here, which had almost caused me to lose my balance and fall off the roof when bringing it across one particularly windy day.

Ignoring the chair, Aleks and I sat down amongst a pile of blankets, huddled in the corner. We sat very close, as we always did when we were alone. It was comfortable that way, and felt safe. I felt whole.

"So what did you mean? What's bothering you?" I asked.

Aleks sighed, then was silent for a minute before answering.

"It's just that this all happened so fast. One minute I'm planning what stupid stuff we're going to get up to this year, then I'm on a plane across the ocean coming here. I'm glad I'm here, obviously, because it means I get to see you, which is great."  
He paused again, collecting his thoughts as my heart swelled with affection for him. Even if he didn't see me romantically, he still valued me as a friend.  
"I feel like I didn't have any control in this, it all happened so fast. I hate being out of the loop, and I feel like there's something I don't know. They never usually send anyone to America, even having contacts and language skills."

"You're just annoyed because someone else planned it without you." I teased. When he didn't answer, I knew I was right.  
"It doesn't really matter that you weren't in the know, it wasn't like they knocked you out and shoved you on a plane."

He smiled at that. "And why is the reason so important? I know you like to be in control and make informed decisions about everything, but you're here, that's all that matters. If you ask me, you got lucky not having to deal with all the planning."

Aleks rolled his eyes. "Well, of course you would say that. You can't even organise a list of what you want for your birthday."

I glared. "That better not be an excuse because you haven't got me a birthday present. Or I'll knock you out and tie you naked to a tree covered in birdseed." I threatened.

Aleks just smiled amicably. "And where will you be getting the birdseed from?" I narrowed my eyes, and he laughed at my expression. "Don't worry, you don't have to go shopping for sun seeds just yet. I have your present all sorted."

"You had better."

We sat in companionable silence for a little while, until I broke it.

"Hey, have you heard from your brother since you've been here?"

"No, nothing." He replied, a sad edge to his voice. Aleks cared a lot about his older brother, but since he graduated from St. Basil's 3 years ago, he'd been travelling around Russia with his Moroi.

"Does he even know you've left Russia?"

"Yeah, mama said she got a call from him a couple of days before I left. I was still at St. Basils, so I missed it. But I checked her phone afterwards to make sure she wasn't lying."

I snorted. "You can't even trust your own mother. Charming. Are you like that with every woman in your life?"

"Hey, I let you lead me up onto an abandoned rooftop at night, didn't I? I think that requires a certain amount of confidence in someone." Aleks teased. After a minute, he sighed heavily. "When I got back from St. Basil's, it seemed as though she was tense and on edge, like she was keeping something from me. It was probably just the stress of sending me overseas alone, but I still felt she was hiding something."

"It was probably just the stress."  
Despite my words of comfort, his mother's unease seemed out of character. Valentina was a very level-headed woman, hardly fazed by anything. She was kind and warm to everyone, not unlike my babushka Olena. Valentina's mother was friends with Olena, and had been a childhood friend of my aunt Sonya.

Aleks picked up on my confusion over his mother's behaviour, so I shoved down any doubts I had. I tended to get a little paranoid over things, a downside to being able to see the future. If I saw something bad- I worried that I wouldn't be able to change it. If I saw nothing at all- I felt uneasy that I hadn't seen a positive outcome.  
Most of the time, seeing the future didn't make life any easier. Because it was so temperamental, it actually kind of screwed up your judgement and left you unprepared- like if Superman's flying ability flicked on and off with no warning. One minute he's flying, the next he's plummeting to his death.

"Durak?"

"Huh?" I snapped out of my random superman thoughts, startle gaze focussing on Aleks.

"Do you want to play a game of Durak?" He asked, holding up a pack of cards from the box.

It seemed he'd had enough of the emotional talk tonight, instead slipping back into his comfortable, carefree persona. Honestly, I hadn't expected him to last this long.

Clearing any lingering thoughts out of my mind, I nodded. "Sure. I'd never turn down a chance to kick your ass."

"In your dreams."

I smiled serenely, not bothering to argue back. After all, I already knew which cards I would be dealt, the choices I had to make, and who the winner would be.

Meh, maybe my unpredictable second sight wasn't _so _bad after all.

* * *

**Sorry for taking a while to update this chapter, I didn't have it pre-written and got stuck writing the Anya/Aleks exchanges. The next part is already written, and will hopefully be better. At least it's funny :P **


	14. Chapter 14

**Okay, hopefully this chapter will be better than the last :) **

**I'm going on holiday for 2 weeks today so I won't be able to update until I get home, because there's no internet in the villa where I'm staying., which sucks a bit. But I'm taking my laptop so I'll keep writing, and if I find anywhere with internet, then I can try and update from my iPhone, but I'm not sure how well that will work.**

**Anyway, on with the chapter...**

**Disclaimer: I don't own VA.**

My phone beeped on my bedside table, and I fumbled trying to find it.  
Why the hell was it so early?  
I grabbed it, and forcing one I open, I looked at the blurry screen, trying to find the snooze button.  
Then, I saw the name of the alarm I had set.

**M&M'S BIRTHDAY. GET UP NOW!**

I shot out of bed, simultaneously throwing a balled-up sock at Sophia.  
She grumbled in her sleep.

"Wake up!" I hissed. "It's Mason's and Marina's birthday, and you have serious Spirit to pull off. Get up now!"

Fortunately, that seemed to sink in.

Sophia threw back the covers, grabbing her makeup bag off her bedside table and heading for the bathroom.

We'd all gone to bed at 6 O'clock last night, and it was now 10:00. We had about 7 hours to be there and back at school, and that was cutting it very fine. It would take us about 3 hours to get to the mall and back, leaving us hardly any time to do what we needed. We had to move fast.

Why?

To celebrate Marina and Mason's birthdays, we were going to escape the school for a day and go shopping in Missoula, in tribute to the stunts our parents had pulled when they were here. It was scary and exciting and possibly dangerous, though we had pretty much got everything covered safety-wise. The birthday twins had their hearts set on this outing, and none of the girls had been able to get presents for Mason yet. This was our last chance to hit the shops.

In record time, I pulled on my black skinnies and _badass bitch_ top that I wasn't supposed to wear at school. Then I shoved on my black boots, and shook my head upside down to try and get my hair presentable-looking.

Then I grabbed my phone from where I had thrown it on the bed and called Marina. She answered on the 3rd ring.

_Ok, I'm up. You're just slowing me down by checking up on me!_

She hung up, but at least I knew she was awake and getting ready. Then I texted Lily, who got back straight away with a simple '_yes_'.

I did the same for Mason, who replied he'd been up half an hour already, and called Aleks. It was the 6th ring before he picked up.

"_Yes?"_ He groaned, making it clear that I had just woken him up.

"Aleks, get your _zadnitsa _out of bed right now. We're meeting on the quad in 20 minutes."

There was silence for a few seconds, before it was broken by a string of Russian swearwords.

"Yeah, that's right. Don't be late!" I ended the call, just as Sophia came back.

"That was Aleks and Jet's room, wasn't it." She stated.

I nodded. "We know how to pick them." I said, rolling my eyes.

Sophia laughed. "You and Aleks are a match made in heaven. You could both spend all day in bed, sleeping until it was time for food."

"Believe me, if I had Aleks in bed with me, sleeping would be the last thing on my mind." I said, winking.

She rolled her eyes, but I could feel her amusement. "Just get in there and do your makeup."

I complied, and was ready with 5 minutes to spare.

Sophia was reaching under her bed, pulling out a wooden box. Unlocking it, she took out two velvet bags- a purple and a green one.  
After she threw me the green one to me, I opened and took out the silver and emerald ring my mom and dad had got me for my birthday.

The one that Sophia had charmed with Spirit magic last night so that we would be unnoticeable sneaking off campus in the dead of night.

I slipped it on as Sophia fastened her own diamond necklace around her neck. Then we both grabbed out bags, and slipped out the door.

We met Marina on our way down the second flight of stairs, fizzing with birthday excitement, and when we got out to our meeting place under the oak tree, I was pleased to see that everyone except for Jet and Aleks were there.

Just as Lily began to get impatient and was contemplating strangling her brother, we heard them come running towards us. We glared at them, telling them to be quiet.

I took charge. "Alright everyone, got your charmed silver?" They all nodded, and to be fair, they all looked blurry to me. Sophia confirmed that everyone's auras were ringed in gold.  
"All got money?" Yes. "Cell phones?" Yep. "Stakes?" Check. "Cover stories?" Done. "Sun cream?" The Moroi nodded.

"I think that's everything. Now let's go."

33333 33333 33333

When we reached the spot we were going to leave, we saw Summer waiting there. She had some separately to us, just in case she got caught. She wouldn't be coming with us, but would help us escape. On one condition.

"You got the list?" She whispered to Sophia, who nodded in reply. The price for helping us get out and covering for us was that Sophia buy her sister some things she wanted, but hadn't been able to get.

After that had been clarified, Sophia placed her hands against the chain-link fence. After a moment, the metal became like liquid, melting away to form a tyre-sized hole about a foot off the ground.

I went through first, checking the area for threats. I could hardly believe we were doing this, but since it was daylight, we were safe from Strigoi. We would also be protected by the charms we were wearing, which made us appear human. We also had a spirit user and a fire-using Moroi, and me. I could sense Strigoi from way off, and was sure that if we were in danger of meeting some, I would get a vision or something to warn me.

Once everyone was through, Summer sealed the fence behind us. We would call her once we had to come back through, or if there was a problem with that, well, that's what the bolt-cutters in my bag were for. She could fix the damage later.

It was a 30-minute fast walk to the bus station that would get us to Missoula. The school had been concerned when the road was built so close to the school, but bus-goers were surprisingly reluctant to venture into the deep forest for long enough to find the Academy, and the odd human had strayed onto the road that led to the Academy before anyway. They knew it was there, but didn't really care. I guess the vampire vibes weren't really that welcoming, and you had to be pretty dull to get excited over a school.

When we reached the bus stop, one was 2 minutes away from arriving. After a couple of games of rock-paper-scissors to see who got to sit where, it arrived.

The bus driver didn't seem to care about the fact that 8 teenagers were getting onto a bus in the middle of the day. He was happy to take the money and drive.

After an hour-long trip, we finally arrived outside the huge shopping mall, and Marina squealed in excitement.  
"I feel so bad, but so good! This is what normal people our age get to do!"

I rolled my eyes at her display, but in truth, I felt the same. It was how I always felt in Baia, away from Court, but this was even more out there. If we were caught, we would be in such deep shit.

But I kinda liked the feeling.

I turned to the gang, most of who were staring up at the huge indoor complex with a mix of wonder and anticipation on their faces.  
I grinned. "Race you."

I won because of my head start, reaching the revolving doors just before Aleks, then Jet. As we waited for the Moroi to catch up, I went over the plan in my head.

When everyone was there, I started. "Ok everyone; we have 3 hours if we want to be back safely. That means we need to split up for most of this. But first, we go to the supermarket and buy food. Got it?"

So that's what we did. We stepped into the air-conditioned supermarket, and Mason and I got trolleys.

To avoid arguments about where to start, we decided to just go up and down each aisle in order.

First was **electricals,**__and Mason threw in a DVD. Nobody debated his choice, much, seeing as it was his birthday. Marina didn't seem to care.

Then there was the **bakery** aisle, and I up picked two-dozen donuts and 8 chocolate chip muffins. Then Mason chose a batman birthday cake, and Marina got a chocolate one. Lily grabbed candles. Jet pointed out that we needed a lighter, earning 'you so stupid' looks from everyone, before he glanced at Ash sheepishly.

When we passed through **confectionary**_**, **_Mason told everyone to get two 2-for-a-dollar packets each, then we could share them. I got sherbet lemons and rosy apples.

We then got 4 packets of cheesy Doritos and 2 original, and sent Ash to go find stuff to dip them in. He came back with arms laden with guacamole and salsa and sour cream, and we were impressed to see that he had bought several packets of grated cheese without being told.

I patted him on the head. "What a good little housewife you'll be some day."

"If you're going to be like that, I won't make you any more of dad's special pancakes." He shot back, causing the others to laugh at the look of utter horror on my face.

My trolley was mounting up by now, so we filled Mason's when we got to the drinks. 4 litres of Coke, 2 of Red Bull, 2 Lucozade, 2 Lemonade, 2 pints of flavoured milk and a bottle of cold latte later, the dodgy wheel on the trolley was really playing up.

As we forced our way to the checkout, I glanced at Mason. He nodded once, and I said "Trolley race!"  
We sped down the aisle, until we had to slam our heels down when the aisle opened out onto the line of checkouts.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw Mason had coasted to a stop several metres away, drinks-laden trolley not able to keep up with mine.

He glared. "You keep cheating today."

I shook my head. "Nuh uh. Not _cheating. Beating._ You should be used to it by now, Castile."

My eyes nearly bugged out of my head when I saw the final price we had to pay- $237.54. On food. Insane.

But Sophia handed over the cash without so much as blinking. We had to pay with cash, as we didn't exactly want 'Missoula' showing up on the Queen's next bank statement. That would just ruin everything.

Once we got out of the shop, we were faced with a problem.

"What do we do with all this stuff?" Marina asked. "There's no way I am carrying this around for the next 2 hours. It's bad enough we have to get it back."

Sophia frowned. "I can use telekinesis later, but not exactly in the middle of a mall..."

Then I spotted something a few shops away.

"Look! Lockers. We can just shove the bags in there for now."

Aleks shrugged. "Actually not a bad idea."

After cramming the bags into 3 lockers, we decided to split up.  
"Ok, we meet back here at 3:00, OK? That gives us just under 2 hours. Avoid using cells if possible."

They just stood there nodding.

"GO!" I shouted, and the guys disappeared.

I turned to the girls.  
"Ok. First up: Presents!"

We had all decided that we would each buy Mason one proper present, and one comedy one. Marina had already bought Mason some other presents, but they were back at Court and would be brought down by Mia when she came to visit sometime this week. We'd assured Marina many times that her presents were safely back at the school already.

First we went into the game store, where Sophia bought him Black Ops 2, as well as getting a copy for Summer, as it was one of the things on her list.  
Lily also bought him a DVD.

Then, we went to Target. We browsed through our section before making our way over to the guys' bit. Sophia found her second present by the entrance.

Giggling, she held the packet up, causing Marina to laugh loudly.  
"Captain America boxers? Really?"

Sophia nodded. "They have batman too."

That made me laugh. "I can't wait until he gets laid for the first time. I bet he'll be wearing his Ninja Turtles pants."

"No, Anya! Don't talk about my brother getting laid at all, especially in reptile boxers!" Marina scrunched her nose up. "And if she runs, I'll have to kill the bitch."

"Don't worry. For Mase, we'll all be right behind you. Same goes for any of the guys."

Lily glared playfully at Sophia. "Yeah, hurt my brother and you'll have me to answer to. And my dad will fight back your Spirit magic, and mom will do some voodoo curse on you."

The thought of Sydney cursing anyone was hilarious, but not all that unreasonable if someone hurt her children. She loved her Dhampir babies even more than her car babies, which was saying something.

Looking back at the rack in front of us, I found a set of Spiderman pants.  
"Better get these as well- if he's gonna stay a secret superhero, he can at least alternate them more often."

Sophia took them off me. "Sure, sure. You sure you don't want to get any for Aleks, then ask him to model them for you?"

The others cackled at the look on my face, but I quickly smoothed it over.  
"If that was my plan, I'd make sure they were a lot more attractive than Marvel heroes." I grinned. "Besides, I have a feeling there's be more than enough to 'marvel' at even without them..."

We left the underwear section in fits of laughter, stopping when I found what I'd been looking for.

"Hey, wait up a second." On the wall opposite me was a black tshirt with a smiley face. With fangs.  
Written under the face in red, bloodlike type was 'bite me'.  
This was so Mason.

I tried to reach the shirt, but it was about half an inch too high. I could just about reach the hem of the shirt in front, but it was the wrong size.

I huffed in defeat. "I need my dad for this."

Sophia smiled. "Or Aleks."

I glared at her. "Or a tall, kind friend of mine in heels."

Rolling her eyes, Sophia stepped forward, and going up on her toes, pulled down the shirt in the correct size.

Marina gave her a pat on the shoulder.  
"Very good impression of a tall, hot Russian man there, Soph."

She swept us a bow. "_Spasibo_, Marina."

I regarded her sceptically. "Nah, not quite doing it for me. There's something missing."

Lily grabbed a fake banana off the display cabinet where mannequins were eating a picnic. She dangled it in front of Sophia, waist height.

"Better now?" She asked, and we all laughed in response. Shaking my head through my laughter, I rested a pair of big sunglasses over the banana. The 2 circles of the lenses had the desired effect, sending us into another wave of hysterics.

After stopping off at the music store to let Marina but Mason a new guitar strap, we headed to the last store, which was a cross between a party shop and a joke shop.

We had an hour left before we had to meet the guys, and we spent a good part of that just walking around and laughing at what we found.

Marina bought Mason a pair of swimming trunks saying '_warning- may contain nuts'.  
_Lily got him a bottle of 'comedy cologne', that looked like an ordinary can of body spray, but that promised to leave brown marks on skin & clothes and smell terrible.  
When I saw a packet of tricolour 'penis pasta', I bought it without a second thought, and for 'dessert', I got him a chocolate penis. Childish, but he'd appreciate the humour.

Once we had all of Mason's presents out the way, we used the last half hour to buy party supplies. Streamers, balloons, stupid hats.  
And 12 cans of Silly String in assorted colours.

Finally we dragged all of our bags back to the food court, Sophia's looking suspiciously light, and flunked down on the plastic chairs, waiting for the boys to come back.

**So that's it, hopefully I'll be able to update before 2 weeks, but it's not likely. I'll keep writing like crazy, though :) **

**So arrivederci until then, my lovely readers :D x**


	15. Chapter 15

**I am with Internet! It's not a very good connection, but it's there :D Been fighting with it since yesterday, and it finally worked long enough to get this up. Don't have much for you in this chapter, but you'll get more when I get home. The next 5 chapters are done, and there's lots of drama coming up :O  
Ahh, just got online in time yesterday to see Danila finish filming :'( No more cute pictures. But the last one he just put up is like ^.^ And finally we see Duster! *.* And the pic of him and Zoey, so cute! I love them ^.^ So sad they've all finished filming now though. No more cute pics :( But hopefully official pics and trailers soon! Can't wait for Blood Sisters!**

**Anyway, I'll shut up now. *Disclaimer: Still don't own it.***

* * *

Getting back to the school was a bit of an anticlimax. Sitting on a bus for hours, our excitement faded away. Then, getting back into school grounds proved just as easy as getting out. Summer was waiting for us by the gap in the fence, and she grabbed the bag her sister passed her before running off to her dorm. It was still light outside, and we were a good 40 minutes away from sunset, and danger.

Our own dorm security guy had nodded off into his magazine, and didn't notice the door opening and 8 kids running past him up the stairs. I guess he thought nobody would be up this early in the Moroi morning. We went to mine and Sophia's room, since it was the biggest, on the top floor, and actually clean (no thanks to me).

After shutting the door behind Jet, I went and flopped down on the bed.

"Well, that was easy."

They all murmured in agreement.

"Seriously, the school should get some psi-hounds or something. Then it might give us a bit of a challenge." Mason joked. Well, I think he was joking.

"Alright, everyone just drop your stuff here and go to bed. I swear I'm going to pass out otherwise." Sophia said weakly.

Concerned, I headed to the mini fridge to fetch an emergency bag of blood for her. She'd used a lot of Spirit, and I was worried she would actually pass out. I checked her emotions, but she didn't seem too depressed or anxious. The pills were doing their job. I was so glad she'd been able to get some that dimmed the negative effects, but still allowed her to use her magic. That kept her happy in itself.

By the time I'd cut the top of the pouch and found a straw, everyone apart from Jet had left. Apparently she wasn't too tired for a good night kiss.

"Push off, Jet. She needs her beauty sleep."

Jet smiled indulgently at Sophia. "Nah, she's beautiful already. You, on the other hand..." He looked me up and down appraisingly.

"It must be exhausted from the effort of looking so scorchingly sexy every day. Of course you wouldn't understand that concept. Off you fuck."  
I shooed him out the door, but not before he blew one last kiss to Sophia.

I didn't wake up until almost midday, and only then because my stomach was growling so loudly (lol mine just did :P). I shook Sophia awake, and we both got dressed.

We were meeting everyone for lunch in the cafeteria before they were to head up to our room for the celebrations. It was actually the twins' birthdays today. Since we'd have company, I made an extra effort to actually make my bed. Sophia looked shocked when she came out of the bathroom and saw me fluffing pillows.

"You realise it's a birthday and not the end of the world, right?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah. But when trying to attract a member of the opposite sex, one does not want to look like a slob. And the bed is kinda a key area." I winked.

Sophia shook her head, but I could see she was smiling. She didn't say anything.

My stomach growled again, and I gave my hair a final check in the full-length mirror before opening the door.

"After you, Miss. Dragomir."

* * *

Down in the cafeteria, I took my loaded plate over to the table. Mason was already sporting a huge '15 today' badge that he kept catching his fork on as he tried to eat. He didn't seem to realise why the fork was empty by the time it reached his mouth. I didn't bother trying to help him. It seemed that reaching a new age hadn't improved his intelligence any.

Fortunately, since I didn't want to get food flicked on me by the rogue fork, my seat was closer to Marina than her brother, so I greeted her first.

"Hey, happy birthday! Excited?" I asked as I sat down opposite her.

She nodded, not saying anything since she was still chewing her apple. Since that was all she had on her plate, I guessed she was saving herself for the feast up in my room. All the girls were doing the same, except me. I could out-eat Mason, which was saying something.

Once she had swallowed, she spoke.  
"It's gonna be an epic party. With yesterday..." she trailed off glancing furtively around, "today's party, and getting mom and dad's present later, it will be the best."

"Good luck. My birthday's coming up soon, so that'll be even better. You'll have your work cut out trying to beat my work, though." Every year we'd organise each other's birthdays, taking it in turns. This one had been mine to plan.

Marina and Mason should actually have been in the year below, but Mia and Eddie had been called away on a year-long tour to promote Moroi fighting the year when the rest of us started school. They couldn't get out of it, so St. Vladimir's offered to take the twins a year early. Apparently the school had been worried Mia and Eddie would settle down out of America, meaning the twins would attend a different Academy. St. Vlad's didn't want to lose out on the chance to teach the children of those 2- a famous Royal Guardian and a Moroi at the helm of the offensive magic movement, which had now been successfully instated as a result of that trip.

Just then, someone came to stand behind Marina. It was Angelo, the sexy Hispanic Dhampir she'd had a crush on for years but only recently admitted. I forced myself to hold in a smile, else I'd give it away.

"Marina", was all he said, but it made her jump about half a mile in her seat.

"Uh, hi, Angelo. Um, what do you..." She trailed off, blushing a bright red. She was normally so confident around everyone, it was funny to see her out of her depth.  
Angelo seemed to notice this too, and fought to keep a smile of his own off his face.  
Not a laughing-at-your-discomfort smile, but a it's-so-cute-that-you're-nervous smile. With a hint of his own nervousness, too.

He was so into her.

"I just wanted to wish you happy birthday. 15, right?" He'd turned 16 a couple of weeks back.

She nodded, seeming incapable of speech. His smile grew.

"Well, here. I saw this and it reminded me of you. Happy birthday."  
He picked her hand up from where it lay on the table, caressing it slightly before placing a small, blue wrapped package on her palm.

"I- thank you." She looked up at him with a smile, before looking back at the present in her hand. When she looked up again, Angelo was already walking away.

"He laiiiikes you." I teased.

She shot me a warning glare as she began to unwrap his present. One the paper was ripped, something slivery slipped into her hand.

Holding it up, I saw it was a necklace. The blue stone was the exact colour of Marina's eyes; it was clear why it had reminded him of her. The small hallmark on the chain showed it was real silver.

"He really likes you, Mari." I repeated, not joking this time. She looked stunned, like she believed it too.

As she put it on, I looked across the hall to see Angelo watching her. When he caught my eye, he smiled and gave a small shrug. I winked back.

I had a feeling that the rest of the day would be just as great.

* * *

When we all met up at my room again, we sat in a circle with the presents in the middle. Marina and Mason took it in turns opening presents, which took about an hour. It would have taken most people longer, but the twins seemed to have a special talent for ripping paper open in record time. How Marina's manicure stayed intact, I'll never know. Then again, I thought that every time she hit someone, too.

It was a great haul of presents, the most memorable being a Bobbi Brown make-up kit for Marina and new iPad for Mason. He did like the comedy gifts as well, though.

"Woo! I have 2 dicks now! Whaddaya think, Ladies?" Mason shouted after opening my present. The others recoiled from the swinging chocolate penis, but I managed a mask of shock.

"What, you mean you have another one hidden somewhere? Honey, your chode doesn't count." I teased.  
After a moment's thought, Mason pulled on his 'may contain nuts' boxers over his jeans.  
"Aah, I see. Of course."

Once all the presents were opened and it looked like a wrapping paper bomb had exploded in the room, the twins stacked their stuff in a corner and came back to the circle. Sophia and I rejoined them a minute later with trays and bowls of food.

Ash grinned. "Right, what shall we play first?"

* * *

**Well, that's all for now. Next chappie up when I get reliable internet again, probably when I'm home. Until then, go drool over Danila pictures ;) **

**S'laters :) **


	16. Chapter 16

**Sorry for the wait, I just couldn't get into this chapter at all. But here it is :) **

**Disclaimer: Richelle Mead owns Vampire Academy, not me. **

* * *

"Oh oh, I have an idea!" Marina shouted, raising her hand and waving it around madly.

Mason sighed. "Oh, not one of your crazy made-up games that nobody understands but you."

"Yes, and no. It's not my fault you have trouble keeping up with me and that I got your share of IQ as well." He glared at her, but she continued; "it's called Secret, and it's simple. We split into boy vs. girl teams, then write our deepest, darkest secret on a piece of card, and number them. Then, hand those cards over to the other team and each person writes down who they think each secret belonged to. Then we switch sheets and mark them. The person with the most correct answers wins, and so does the team that has the total correct guesses. Got it?"

"Eh, I'm sure it'll be fine once we get started. But I think we should nominate one person to do the writing so you can't tell who it is that way."

We all agreed, and Mason reluctantly distributed the blank cards he'd bought earlier. Our team designated Sophia as our scribe, and it looked like Jet was taking control with the guys' team. We split to different sides of the room.

I wrote my secret down on a piece of rough paper, and Sophia copied it up neatly onto card, before doing the same for the others.

Mine was that I'd only ever had one kiss.  
Sophia couldn't sleep without her teddy bear.  
Marina once spent $500 in Victoria's secret  
Lily once broke 2 knuckles punching someone.

Looking at the secrets, I suspected it would be pretty hard for the guys to guess correctly- all our secrets were pretty out of character. I guess that was why they remained secrets.

By now the guys had finished writing too, so Sophia swapped the cards with Jet, and I handed out more paper that we could write our answers on. We then spread out even more, since it was a competition within groups as well, and we weren't allowed to talk.

One person at a time looked at the cards and wrote their guesses, before passing it on to the next one. I let Sophia and Marina go first, and then took the cards myself.

Seriously? This was the best they could come up with? I guess this was why girls had the reputation as secret-keepers and gossipers. This was pathetic.

1 would rather face a Strigoi than an angry Dimitri.  
2 once got a boner over a teacher.  
3 has never backed down from a dare.  
4 is afraid of water.

1-Mason. He was scared shitless of my dad.  
2- Jet. I was sitting next to him when Miss. Edwards leaned over her desk, boobs practically falling out of her blouse.  
3- Aleks. He'd done every dare I'd ever seen him be given. Even swimming under the ice of a partially frozen lake, and chatting up Yeva (which was something to see).  
4- Ash. He did a pretty good job at keeping it hidden, but I could read emotions. It wasn't really cheating, because I'd still have got that answer by process of elimination.

I wrote my name at the top of the paper, thinking this seemed more like a school quiz than a fun game. Oh well, I guess seeing other people's answers was the fun part.

I passed the cards to Lily, and sat back on the bed. I heard Mason snigger, and looked over to see him shaking his head. I guess he knew about Marina's shopping spree.

Lily finished before the guys, so we collected the papers and chatted for a minute about what movie to watch. Then, we Jet passed us his team's papers. Time to see how well these people knew me.

Turns out Mason was the only one who guessed my secret right. I didn't really know how I felt about that, since it meant Aleks had no idea that he'd been my first kiss. I didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed. But it could have been worse, he didn't think I'd broken my hand punching someone or had spent $500 on underwear. He'd guessed I couldn't sleep without a bear, and it wasn't too far wrong. I did still have a stuffed toy on my bed, but it was a horse, and I didn't need it to sleep. So he could be forgiven for the mistake.

I was kinda glad that Mason knew. Though I didn't tell him everything like I did Sophia, he was probably my second closest friend here in America.  
Jet and Ash, however, did both think I'd gone on a crazy shopping spree. Although they wouldn't get the papers back, since then they'd find out who really had done what, I took great pleasure in crossing out their answers.

After we had a laugh about how wrong the guys were, we all went back to our circle to reveal the results.

I read them out. "Total correct answers- 4. Jet- 1. Ash-1. Aleks-1. Mason-2 correct answers. Birthday boy wins from your team."

"Wait, what? How did we do so bad?" Ash exclaimed.

"Uh, 'cuz you're guys? And girls are better at keeping secrets probably." Marina answered. She was happy because only her brother had guessed hers right.

"I'm guessing our team did a little better." I speculated, and Jet sighed before reading out the results. "Total- 10. Lily-2. Marina-2. Sophia-2. Anya- 4."

"Woo!" I shouted, jumping up. "I know alllll your secrets, bitches!" I pointed at the guys, laughing. Ash glared, probably wondering how I knew he was afraid of water. The others didn't look too surprised, though I could see Jet silently begging me not to tell Sophia about the teacher incident. I winked at him.

Lily also looked a little annoyed. She leaned in and whispered, "I can't believe they all thought I'd only had one kiss. No offence to you or anything, because it's true, but do I really come across that shy?"

I shook my head. "Nah. Aleks doesn't really know you, Ash can't see any further than his own asshole, and Jet is your brother, so wouldn't want it to be true since he's so protective. You kissed Mase a couple of times, so he knows."

"Thanks," she smiled. I knew that her nerdy shyness was a bit of an issue for her.

I noticed Aleks was looking at us, wondering what was going on. Hopefully he hadn't heard what we were saying. To cover it up, I grabbed the popcorn and a can of coke.

"What game next?"

* * *

It was well after curfew by the time the party finally broke up, and I was exhausted. We'd had a chat up war, hide and seek, 21 dares and watched 3 films. I was right, it had been the best party ever. Now I just had mine to look forward to.

* * *

**Sorry it's so short and took so long to go up. I really didn't know what else to write. Don't worry though, the next few chapters are finished, and are longer and better than this. I thought about cutting this chapter altogether, but I thought the secrets thing was quite important to show relationships between characters.  
Next chapter up soon, and it's better than this one :) **


	17. Chapter 17

**Okay, I'm back in the swing of this story now. Over 3,000 words :) I'm sorry for the late update, but I had a huge panic when I thought I'd deleted my master copy of this story :O Luckily I found it hidden in some completely random school folder :3 If I'd lost it, I would have cried, since it's over 100 pages and has almost the whole story completed. Hopefully updates will be more frequent again now :) **

**Disclaimer: Richelle owns VA. **

* * *

The 2 weeks after Mason and Marina's birthday were spent messing around and generally having fun. Most nights, Aleks and I would go up to the roof and talk, or just sit and enjoy the companionable silence. It was perfect.

Then, 2 weeks later, came the news that there had been a Strigoi attack. It hadn't been a large one, and had been in Romania, but the consequences were felt at St. Vlad's.

The Guardian mother of one of our classmates had been killed.

Tom was heartbroken. The news flew around the school whilst he refused to leave his room that he shared with his prospective future charge. The change came 3 days later when he was summoned to Court to meet with his father. This Moroi wasn't Royal, and didn't have a new family, so it was understood that Tom would stay with him for a while.

This meant that there was an unguarded Moroi in the room that Tom had just vacated, meaning that one of the Dhampirs that shared with another novice would have to relocate there.  
This wouldn't have been such a huge problem, if the Moroi left behind wasn't such a grade-1 asshole.

The novices desperate to kiss ass and get in with the Royals had already been assigned to a room; those who were sharing with other Dhampirs wanted to stay with their friends. There were only 3 male novice/novice rooms this year, 2 of the wrong age group.

That left Aleks and Jet. One of those guys would be forced to leave their dorm and share a room with Hayden Szelsky.

Ah, Hayden. Now there was I guy I'd love to hi-five. In the face. Hard. He and I had a pretty complex and ugly history that I wished could be re-written. Or even better, deleted entirely. Once upon a time, he hadn't been so bad. He'd even been into me at one point (if he still wasn't). That was the root cause of the present-day animosity.

Long story short, I'd rejected him, and he hadn't liked it. Or taken no for an answer. So I'd had to prove my point with a little more force to make sure he got the message. His nose was still a little crooked.

As a result, he thoroughly hated our group. Secretly wanted to get in with Sophia and Ash because of who they were, but hated us none the less. Which is why he flat-out refused to have Jet as his new roommate.

That left Aleks to take Tom's place in his room. I think actually we made a bigger deal out of it than he did; but then again, he hadn't seen his new roomie in all his creepy glory. When the whole gang found out what had happened, there was outrage.

"No way! You cannot be sharing a room with that asshat!" Mason shouted incredulously.

"If you share a room with that pile of shit, you'll smell so bad we'll have to wear nose plugs whenever we see you! Metaphorical nose plugs. The worst kind!" Ash lamented.

"You'll catch his grossness!" I'm not sure who said that one, but it was a lame, if simple, way of displaying the horror that was sharing a room with Hayden.

Aleks looked around at us all, red in the faces from shouting obscenities for the last 10 minutes.

"What is so bad about Hayden? I mean, I only have one class with him, but he doesn't seem too bad. A bit of an idiot maybe, but you can't hate a guy for that."

I snorted. "Believe me, it's not that. We have nothing against idiots, we let Ash in here, but Hayden takes being a dick to a whole new level. He should wear a condom on his head to protect the rest of us from being impregnated with his absolute dickiness."

Aside from Ash's initial protest and a couple of strange looks at my analogy, everyone seemed to agree.

"But what has he done that is so bad?"

Oh, that was such a huge question with so many answers. Everyone began to speak at once, about to launch into an anecdote pinpointing just one time that Hayden Szelsky had tried to make their life miserable. As much as I would have liked to join in this hate-fest, after all, it was me who Hayden had it in for the most, I was aware of Aleks looking a bit uneasy at the prospect of sharing a room with someone who was on the verge of being put into the same category as axe-wielding maniacs and people who boiled puppies.

"Okay, okay. Simmer down." I interjected. "Remember that Aleks is going to have to share a room with this guy. Hold off the horror stories or he'll have nightmares, if he's not too scared to close his eyes at night!"

Everyone grumbled at missing out on the chance to have a Szelsky-slating session.

"Let's allow Aleks to come to his own opinions about the scumbag. I'm sure they won't be too different to what we've discovered." _Especially after what I heard him saying about Aleks and his 'blood whore' mother last week, _I added mentally.

Aleks flashed me a grateful smile.

"I'm sure it'll be fine. I'll still be spending most of my time with you lot- when I'm in my room, I'm either reading, sleeping or listening to music." Aleks reasoned. "And I'll try and get away as often as I can to report back on his latest despicable behaviours."

Jet clapped him on the back. "You better. I'm gonna miss you, man."

Aleks looked sympathetic. "At least you still have your bear. Teddy's always up for a hug."

Jet blushed whilst I hi-fived Aleks.

We carried on like that until curfew, tearing chunks out of each other and laughing at others' weaknesses, devising crazy schemes to get Aleks back into Jet's room.

I loved those easy, carefree moments with my loyal friends and the guy I loved. I couldn't believe how lucky I was, even if things were changing.

But if I'd known how numbered those happy times were, I'd have treasured them even more.

* * *

"Hey, where's Aleks?" Marina asked, directing the question at me.

I shrugged. "He said earlier that he would be here. He warned he may be a little late, but he should be here by now."

We'd all met up in mine and Sophia's room for a movie night. We'd already rescheduled once due to Aleks bailing on us when something 'important' popped up, and he'd already skipped last week's _Bourne-_athon.

It was 3 weeks since Aleks had moved into Hayden's room, and over the last 10 days, I'd noticed him become more withdrawn from our group. I guess sharing a room with a sociopath did have an effect on you, but this was a bit more than I'd expected. Even when he was with us, he seemed... distant.

We'd still been meeting up on my rooftop, though not as regularly. Obviously Aleks couldn't sneak out of his new room like he's used to leave Jet's, so this I could understand. But what I didn't get was why he was busy before curfew, when Hayden wasn't even in his room.

Ash sighed in annoyance. "We'll have to start without him, or the movie won't finish before curfew. And I don't want to miss the end- I haven't even seen this one yet."

I checked my phone again anxiously.  
"Just give him 2 minutes, then we can start."

Exactly 80 seconds later, my phone chirped.

**Sorry, can't make it for film. Still on for roof tonight? Hayden staying out after curfew.**

**K, yeh.**  
Was my curt reply.

"Is he not coming?" Sophia asked, seeing my face, or reading the disappointment in my aura.

"No," I sighed, "He says he's sorry but he can't make it. Just put the stupid film on already."

Ash got up, grumbling. "He could have told us earlier that he was going to ditch. Seriously, we're stuck at a boarding school and we're his only friends. What else could he possibly be doing at this time of night?"

"Oh, shut up and put the movie on. It's better than hearing you ranting." I told Ash. Privately, I was agreeing with what he had said. What was Aleks doing? There was no answer, even with my powers.

Mason saw how upset I was and moved closer to me, dragging a bowl of popcorn and a huge bar of chocolate.

"Hey, more food for us, right?" He said cheerily, trying to make me feel better.

The sentiment helped, but as I took a bite of the dark chocolate that I'd got especially for Aleks, I couldn't fill the hole that seemed to be eating me from the inside out.

When I got to our meeting place that night, Aleks was already waiting. We stayed silent as I unlocked the door and we climbed to the roof.

Still neither of us spoke as we sat down with our backs against the cold brick wall.

The sunrise had cast long, distorted shadows of our bodies onto the tiles before he finally spoke.

"I'm sorry for missing the movie, Anya. I wanted to go, but..."

"You had things to do." I finished, voice sounding colder than I had meant it to.

"Don't be like that." Aleks asked, a pleading edge to his voice. But there was also annoyance in there, too. It irritated my even more.

"Like what, Aleks? Was I being short with you, did I sound resentful that I was here instead of somewhere else."

Aleks looked at me, frowning. "What? What's that supposed to mean?"

I picked at a broken bit of tile. "I don't know, Aleks. I feel like there's a lot I don't know lately."

"Look, I told you. I'm sorry that I missed you earlier. But I'm here with you now, trying to make amends. It's not like I was off having fun without you or something." He finished.

I arched an eyebrow. "What were you doing, then? Enlighten me."

"I was helping Hayden with his calculus." Seeing my disbelieving face, he laughed humourlessly. "Not the glamorous alternative you were expecting?" He said sarcastically.

"No. I'm just... surprised, I guess. Never thought that Hayden would actually look for help outside of lessons. Figured he was just the roll with the pass-mark type."

"Maybe that's how he is because that's all people expect of him."

Now I was truly stunned. Aleks was standing up for Hayden? And spouting Zen-wisdom back at me?! I was the resident Zen-Master of the group!

Deciding it was just too weird to think about right now, and waste this precious time alone with Aleks, I allowed us to drop back into our old comfortable routine. It worked fine, until it became time for us to leave.

"So, are we on for next Tuesday night? Or are you going to bail on me then too?" I teased.

But when I saw Aleks' guilty face, I dropped the light tone to my voice.

"What? Seriously? I thought that it was one night you could absolutely guarantee you'd be able to do? I know Hayden's having his party in the woods that night, so you'll have the room to yourself and be able to get away easily. So what gives?"

Aleks looked uncomfortable, kicking at a loose piece of cement.

"Well, it's sort of because of that I can't make it."

I immediately understood why he looked so sheepish. "You're actually going to one of Hayden Szelsky's parties?!" I asked incredulously.

"Well, yeah. Hayden said that I've been here a while now and have had time to settle in, so it's time I should meet some new people, and that a party will be a good was to do that. Plus, you know, it'll be fun. I haven't been to a party in ages, and I want to try going to an American one."

I snorted. "Loud music. Sweaty bodies grinding against you. Cheap alcohol that is more likely to poison you that our vodka. Guardians ready to stick you in a month's detention cleaning gum off the bottom of desks if you get caught. That's what their parties are like. Oh, and full of Royals that think of Dhampirs as servants. Still want to go?"

Aleks narrowed his eyes. "Sure you're not just jealous you didn't get an invite?"

I threw my head back and laughed, probably sounding a little unhinged. "Oh please- you don't get invited! It's an open-air party in the woods, anyone can go with anyone! And get with anyone too! What is there to be jealous of?"

"Me?" Aleks replied, and the alarm bells rang like crazy. "Are you jealous that I'm spending time with other people, not just your little clique?"

False alarm- he didn't mean jealous as in me wanting him, at least not in the way I did.  
But that didn't mean his statement was any less offensive. Or any less true.

I took a step forward, stretching up on my toes to be closer to his height.  
"If your brain was as big as your ego, maybe you'd stop talking so much shit. Though, you'd have to get your head out of your ass first."

I pushed past Aleks, wrenching the door open and stamping down the stairs. I sped up, practically running back to my room. I was fuming.

How fucking dare he? I swear, if-

Something tugged me back, and I let out a yelp. Spinning around, I practically smashed into Aleks' chest.

I ripped my arm out of his grip, narrowing my eyes at him. "What? Come to insult me and my friends again? Because that's not a very wise thing to do right now. Or any time."

"Look, Asya, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that, and I acted like an ass. I'm just missing home, and everyone back there. I love spending time with you, and your friends are great. I'm just not used to spending so much time with such a small group."

I took a deep breath, letting the anger dissipate. He did have a point- in Baia, there were at least 10 people our age we hung out with, and I knew there were even more at St. Basils. I should probably cut him some slack- it couldn't be easy, so far from home. I wouldn't use his Russian pet name, though, like he had for me.

"It's okay, Aleks. I get that you're homesick. Just don't take it out on me and my friends, alright? Because what you said was out of line. _We're _not the in clique, we're the outcast group. But that's our _choice_. We're happy with that, and don't want to be part of the popular crowd, but don't make it sound like we're the ones with the power to say who lives and who dies socially, well, except the Dragomirs. And even if he seems fine to you, Hayden has earned every bad word we've ever said about him."

I could see Aleks was about to reply, but just then I heard the crunch of gravel under heavy boots.  
"Shit, someone's coming. We've got to go."

Before I could turn around, Aleks leaned in and kissed my cheek. It was like a firework exploded where his lips touched my skin- warm and bright and beautiful, but fading into darkness all too quickly.

"Night, Anya. I'm sorry."

As he turned to go back to his dorm, I stared at his retreating back for a second longer.  
"Night, Sasha." I whispered, before heading back to my own room, and my own bed.

* * *

Up on the roof 4 nights later, I was alone for the first time since I'd brought Aleks up here. It was the night of Hayden's party, and though the music wasn't loud enough for me-or the teachers-to hear, there was an electric buzz in the air that came from drunken people having fun.

Again, I had to suppress the urge to run over there and follow Aleks. I knew it was stupid, but he was right. I _was _jealous, though I'd deny it again if he asked me.

I couldn't go because as soon as I set foot in the party limits, I'd be groped and grabbed by almost every male in the vicinity. It was awkward when I didn't return their enthusiasm, and then they got angry. Aleks would be proved right that I was jealous, and think I was some pathetic stalker chick. Then I'd probably get drunk, Royal Moroi girls would get pissed at me for ruining their fun, I'd lose the self-control I worked so hard to keep fold of, and hit someone. Then the Guardians would come, and I'd be stuck in a whole lot of trouble, probably with my parents getting called in from Court.

That was maybe a little paranoid, but imagining the worst-case scenario helped to convince me not to go.

Instead, I tried to expand my senses and pick up on some images from the party.

It was like walking through treacle, not the usual mist or water. Something was holding me back, but eventually I fought my way through.

The pictures were blurry and disjointed, since my gift was linked to the thoughts and feelings of others, it was like I was experiencing being drunk right alongside them.

I looked through the knot of bodies, searching for Aleks. There he was, red cup in hand, complete with a couple of skanks grinding up against him. Thankfully, he didn't seem to interested in them, as his gaze was focussed elsewhere.

Before I could see what had caught his attention, I lost the image.

I was left alone on a cold rooftop, sitting on hard tiles. It was pretty pathetic, really.

So I threw the blanket off me and headed downstairs to bed, wondering why I felt like this was just the beginning of these lonely times.

Oh well. At least I had my birthday next weekend to look forward to, when I'd be out of this insane place and back home.

* * *

**So, things are changing for Anya. What's got into Aleks? Is he just becoming a douche because he's falling in with the wrong crowd, or is something more serious going on? **

**Reviews are much appreciated :) **


	18. Chapter 18

**! ! ! Did you see Weinstein Company's tweet? The Blood Sisters trailer is supposed to be out THIS MONTH ! ! ! Fangirling! I can't wait XD **

**All rights to Vampire Academy go to Richelle Mead. **

* * *

The next morning woke slowly, the moon hanging lazily above the school parapets, as though it wasn't really interested in what was going on in the world below it.

Well, of course it wasn't. It was a lump of rock orbiting the Earth.

I _so _needed to get a grip.

I sat down at our usual table where most people were already seated, but the space next to me was vacant.

"Where's Aleks today, Anya?" Lily asked.

I just shrugged, seeing how my mouth was stuffed full of bagel.

Ash's gaze fixed on something over my head, and a sour look crossed his face. "Oh, there he is. It seems like he's taking on the role of Hayden's newest groupie."

"What?" I coughed, almost choking on the food I had just tried to swallow. After gulping down some water, I craned my neck around to try and see him. "No way."

I heard a girl giggle, and Ash looked disgusted. "My mistake. It seems that we have a new Sophomore king. Or Tsar, I guess."

"And the resident Queen Bee has already got her stinger in him." Jet added.

This time, I choked on my water. Holding back a coughing fit, eyes streaming, I couldn't turn around and look. Maybe that was a good thing.

Because though I couldn't see what was going on, I could feel the distinct selfish satisfaction coming from Brooke Badica, Royal bitch of the century. All-round slut with the moral fibre of pond scum. And quite possibly the person who hated me more than anyone else in this world, dead or undead.

"Excuse me." I rasped, and stalked out of the hall.

Once the coughing fit was over, I didn't feel like going back in there again. So instead I decided to take a walk around campus until lessons started.

When I reached the pond, I saw that I wasn't the only one skipping breakfast. My friend Carrie lay on a bench, clutching her head.

"Hey, are you alright?" I asked, though it was clear she wasn't.

"Ssh, quieter. I have the worst hangover headache _ever."_ She whispered.

She pulled herself up into a sitting position with a grimace, patting the space next to her. I sat down carefully, trying not to jog the bench too much.

"You shouldn't have drunk so much. How are you going to do combat classes later if you already feel like you've been beaten up?" I scolded.

"Oh, don't even go there. Stan's going to have my head as it is. Though he can keep it- I'll get one that hurts less." She groaned. I pulled a couple of painkillers out of my jacket pocket, and she took them gratefully, dry-swallowing them with a look of pain on her face.

"You were at Hayden's party, right? Why did you go if you knew you'd end up like this?" I asked.

"I didn't mean to get so drunk, but I think someone spiked my drink." I rolled my eyes. Why were people so stupid? "But it was so worth it, though. Majorly crazy stuff went down."

In spite of myself, I asked her what.

"Oh, Tanya was accusing Brooke of sleeping with her boyfriend, which she denied, and they were seconds away from an all-out bitch fight. Then Tanya's boyfriend was like 'I wish I _had_ been with Brooke', and tried to kiss her whilst Tanya went in for the kill. Then your friend Aleks pulled him away, pushed him back at Tanya- they're back together now, by the way- and then Brooke was saying how grateful she was to Aleks for 'saving her'." Carrie smiled wryly. "I guess he's settled in and is comfortable enough to be thinking about something other than studying."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, hoping against hope I was wrong.

"Well, she spent the rest of the night stuck to his side like a limpet, and when I was taking a shortcut through the woods back to my dorm, I saw them making out under a tree."

I felt sick. I knew that Aleks would probably get a girlfriend whilst he was here, and that this was probably just a drunken kiss, but I couldn't help feeling this intense jealousy. I also couldn't help wanting to rip Brooke's head from her shoulders and parade it around the school for getting what I wanted.

And because it was Brooke and not some random other girl, it was _so _much worse.

There was a reason that girl hated me so bad, and it led to the reason I couldn't stand her. And why I was worried for Aleks getting involved with her.  
Brooke and I had been sort-of friends in grade school, though we'd never been exactly close. She was sweet, in a naive, trusting way. In her mind, the world was perfect and safe, and unicorns probably existed.  
When we were 14, she'd trusted me enough to confide in me that she loved Hayden. And that she thought he might be interested in her, too.

A few short weeks later, she told me that they'd done _it._ She was incredibly happy, as though in her mind it was a promise to a big white wedding and happy ever after. I hadn't had it in me to tell her that I knew for a fact he'd already done it with one of the girls in the year above.

Later that semester, Hayden had organised his first on-campus secret party. It was crazy, and since it was the first time drinking socially like that for most of us, things were bound to go wrong.

And they did.

I'd been careful with my drink, my parents' lessons still strong in my mind. Don't do anything stupid, and all that. But evidently, not everyone had the same reservations. Hayden, the proud host, had drunk more than anyone else. After just an hour, he was off his head and stumbling around, much to his friends' delight.

It all went wrong when he approached my group, grabbing my hand. He'd asked me to dance, and I'd agreed with a little encouragement from my friends. After some pretty awkward grinding, I'd tried to leave. But he'd grabbed my arms, saying that if I was leaving, he'd be coming with me. He tried to kiss me then, but I pushed him away. He'd got close, though, and his loud, suggestive comments had reached Brooke's ears.

She'd stormed up, ripping him off me and calling me a boyfriend-stealing slut, telling me to keep my filthy blood-whore hands off of 'her guy'.

Hayden had reacted to that, saying that he wasn't 'hers', she was just to pass the time until I would go out with him. Brooke hit him, and ran away crying. The Guardians had busted the party after that, and we'd all made a break for it.

The next morning, Hayden hadn't remembered calling Brooke out, but realising I wasn't in bed next to him, he knew I'd rejected him, and blamed me for his black eye. He'd told all his friends the lie that I'd found him after the party broke up, and he'd got what he wanted.  
Not one to give up so easily, he'd kept asking me ever since then, and when I rejected him, he'd spread rumours about me and him (and me and other guys) as a kind of blackmail. I didn't really care, though.

Brooke, on the other hand, hadn't forgotten. She'd believed his claims about what we'd allegedly done that night, and got it into her head that Hayden didn't love her because of his obsession with me. Since then, they'd got together many times, but didn't have an official relationship. They'd also see other people, but kept their 'friends with benefits' status between a small group of people.

There was no way that she'd given up on Hayden, so at best Aleks was a party fling. I highly doubted this scenario however- she wouldn't get with a lowly Dhampir (even a really hot one) when she had the pick of almost every guy in the school.

At worst, she was going to string him along and break his heart, which she would see as the perfect revenge to get back at me after all these years.

And fuck, if with her skills of manipulation, it would work.  
Because if I told Aleks my suspicions, it would look like I was stalking him, and he'd know how I felt, but I'd seem too jealous- just like Brooke all those years ago. He wouldn't turn down a chance with the hottest, richest, most popular girl in school just because his paranoid creepy friend didn't like it. I'd lose Aleks for good.

I was caught between keeping Aleks' heart from being broken, and losing him forever.

Either way, my own heart would be broken in the process.

* * *

**Poor Anya :( Sucks to be her right now. **

**Reviews are much appreciated :D **


	19. Chapter 19

**Sadly, still don't own Vampire Academy...**

* * *

In the week leading up to my birthday, I saw less and less of Aleks- except from a distance, when he had Brooke hanging off his arm. It would have almost been better not to see him at all, though at least if they were in my sight, they weren't off in a love nest somewhere. The thought made me sick.

I passed the time by entertaining fantasies involving me, her, and some kind of weapon. In combat training, I'd always go out of my way to stake the pale blonde dummy with the pretty, vacant smile. It was probably better than staking the real thing.

The highlight of the week had to be the day before we left for Court, when I was unfortunate enough to be coming out of the changing rooms as Brooke's cronies hung around in there, preening themselves in the mirror.

"I wish I could get to Court this weekend, I seriously need some new makeup. I'm running out of everything!" Brooke exclaimed dramatically.

I knew I should have just walked away, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Sauntering around the corner, I raised one eyebrow at her incredulously. "What, you mean you actually use real, shop-bought cosmetics? I thought you used kids' crayons instead, which is why you look like you've been gang-banged by Crayola."

The looks of shock and utter outrage on their faces was enough to make me crack up, but I held it in. Just.

"It's better than being gang-banged by a load of freaks." She told me haughtily.

Man, what an opening that was.

"Really? Thanks for the tip. Your life experience really comes in handy at times like these."

It took her a second to get it, but even when she did, she just stood there, pale face turning redder and redder by the second. I got bored when I ran out of names to call the colours- I couldn't think of anything redder than a tomato. For a Moroi, that was quite an achievement.

"Well, it was nice speaking to you. I've got a plane to catch in the morning, and I wouldn't want to miss my trip to Court now, would I?" I said lightly, before slinging my gym bag over my shoulder and heading for the door. This seemed to wake her up a bit.

"Well, have fun with your weird freak family!" She shouted after me.

"I'll tell the Queen you sent your regards!" I replied breezily, before laughing and letting the door swing shut behind me.

I felt a happy buzz fill me as I headed back across campus. It was my birthday in a couple of days, _and _I'd been able to piss off Brooke. Could this day get any better?

"Hey, Anya!"

I froze, pausing in my walk back to my dorm to pack for tomorrow. I turned around slowly. "Hi, Aleks. Look, if you're going to say that you're staying here instead of coming to Court this weekend, then don't bother."

He frowned. "What, and miss your birthday? Never. I just wanted to ask what time the plane is leaving tomorrow. I don't want to miss it."

I took a deep, calming breath, letting it by blowing my hair out of eyes. "It leaves at 11:00. Be there early."

"Sure."

We stood awkwardly for a moment, something I was not accustomed to with Aleks. It was like something was slowly dying between us. On his end, anyway. That thought was like a knife slowly twisting in my stomach.

"Well, I need to go pack." I said lamely, pointing back at my dorm.

"Oh, okay. I'll see you tomorrow then. I'm looking forward to seeing Court."

Aleks hadn't been able to come the last, and first, time we'd visited our parents this semester. He hadn't been allowed off campus since he hadn't been here long enough, and Kirova hadn't seen a reason for him to go, that old bitch. Lissa had been busy, so we hadn't got to go since then. Mia and Eddie had been out after the twins' birthday, but that was all.

"I'll show you everything worth seeing." I replied, before turning back towards the girls' dorms. Before I reached the door, I called back to him. "Hey, you better have got me a present!" I shouted.

Aleks grinned. "I value my life, don't I?"

"Clever boy."

* * *

As I dragged my case, and my weary self, across campus to the runway the next morning, I saw that everyone was already there- even Aleks. He was standing amongst my friends, talking to Sophia, but I could feel that the guys weren't entirely happy that he was here. Ash and Jet were displaying a mix of annoyance, distrust and just a hint of jealousy. Mason was angry and disappointed. He was the only one who really knew my feelings for Aleks, and he had always been very protective of me.

After a chorus of 'finally' at my late arrival, we boarded the plane. I grabbed Mason's sleeve and pulled him into a seat next to me.  
"Stop giving Aleks your Laser Death Glare. You're going to burn a hole in his clothes." I joked. Mason didn't laugh.

"Why is he even here? I think he's made his friend preferences pretty clear."

I rolled my eyes. "I know he's being a bit distant, but I'm still his best friend. He isn't going to ditch me on my birthday, Mase."

Mason let out something between a sigh and a snort, seemed to let it drop. A moment later, though, I realised he hadn't completely dropped the subject.  
"Seriously, though. Are you alright with him here? I know the last couple of weeks have been hard on you. If you don't want him here, I'll drag him off the plane myself and leave him on the runway with a reminder that he can't screw with my Anya."

"Mason, it's fine. I want him here." He gave me a 'really?' look. "Yes! Look, how happy I feel that he's here outweighs the..." I was pretty sure saying 'heartbreaking pain of rejection and loneliness of losing my closest friend' wouldn't be the best thing right now. "...rest of it. Alright?"

Mason placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. "Alright, I believe you. But just say the word, and I'll get rid of him."

I shook my heads in defeat, bumping my shoulder into his. The hand that had been resting there slipped off, and fell back into his lap.

I couldn't pinpoint what it was, exactly, but something about the gesture seemed a little forlorn, and I couldn't help but feel a slight, strange sadness when I thought about it.

Shaking it off, I pulled out my laptop. I was way too fired up and excited about this weekend to sleep, and didn't want to ask Sophia to compel me. I'd just have to get over it.

"Anybody want to watch a film?"

'Anybody' turned out to be 'everybody'. We eventually ended up all sitting in 2 rows on the carpeted floor of the plane, with the volume turned up as loud as it would go. St. Vlads seriously needed to invest in some in-flight entertainment systems. Despite the crowding, it turned out to be alright, especially since I got to 'accidently' elbow Ash in the ribs every time I laughed at a funny part in the film. All in all, a pretty good plane ride, as they went.

Still, I couldn't wait to reach the ground. Though the promise of the birthday presents waiting for me at Court may have influenced that a little.

* * *

**Ugh, that last paragraph was way harder to write than it should have been. I blame spending too much time watching old reruns on Tv, and investing too much emotionally in the decent programmes -_- **

**Remember, if you liked it, leave a little love in a review :) **


	20. Chapter 20

**Ugh, sorry it took a long time to update. Had a serious case of writer's block which finally cleared whilst I was out riding. Horses are a great cure for that :) **

**So you guys wanted some daddy Dimitri and longer chapters... well this has both :D **

**Disclaimer: Vampire Academy belongs to Richelle Mead. **

* * *

When we landed at Court, I was the first one off the plane and onto the runway. I didn't want to spend any more time in there than I had to, even if it was on the ground.

Standing just to the side of the small control building was a welcoming party made up of all our parents, except Lissa.

"Anya!" Mom called, and came towards me. I was pulled into a huge hug.

"Hey, mom." I replied, hugging her back.

She pulled away, holding me at arm's length. "I missed you, baby. I'm so sorry we couldn't see you before. We tried, but-"

"Mom, it's okay." I knew she worried that by being a Guardian and sending me to the Academy, I would feel abandoned like she did. I didn't, and never had. When I was younger I wanted to spend more time with my family, but grew up understanding why I couldn't stay with them all the time. I never felt abandoned, because they would always call and keep up to date with what I was doing, and see me whenever they could. I knew their duty was to the Moroi, and thought they did a great job raising me as 2 Guardians. "You were doing your job."

Dad joined us then, and he lifted me up in a hug, like he had done since I was tiny. When he put me down, he looked at me sceptically. "You've got taller."

I straightened up, and though I still didn't reach his shoulder, I was definitely closer than I had been the last time I saw him. "I'll be as tall as mom soon."

"No you won't," she told me. "You're going to stay my little baby forever."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh dear, you're going to be a wreck tomorrow. Or are you going to re-use last year's cards and candles and pretend I'm 15 again?" I joked.

She looked thoughtful. "Not a bad idea, actually. It'd be cheaper that way. Or better yet, we can just pretend it isn't your birthday at all. Just like dad did this year."

I laughed as he glared at her. Dad's 40th birthday was during the summer holidays, and he'd been uncharacteristically grumpy about it. When mom was depressed when she turned 30, he'd been all 'age is just a number'. But turning 40 proved a little much for him. He said it was bad because 40 was when Guardians began to lose their value, which was bullshit. He was still one of the most badass Guardians around. He was a legend. It was made worse because we were in Russia at the time, and aunt Vika teased him constantly. It probably didn't help when his wife was still 33.

By now, most people were making their way off the runway. Christian's 4 kids were running circles around him, deliberately being annoying. When Lissa wasn't with him, he had a tendency to get really frustrated with his 'spawn', as he called them at times like these.

"Dad! Dad! Dad! Where's mom? Dad? Dad!"

Christian spun around, glaring at Summer. "She's in a meeting." He growled.

Summer was quiet for about 3 seconds, before Aiden shouted, "When will she be done?"

"In about an hour."

"That's too long." Ash complained.

"Why do you need to see her?"

"To ask a question." Sophia said.

"What question do you want to ask her?"

"What she's been doing today!" All the Dragomirs said.

Christian groaned and facepalmed. "You kids should be in a condom advert. You're the perfect example of why they should be used."

They all laughed. "I'm telling mom you said that." Aiden sniggered, just as mom reached over and slapped Christian on the arm. "Just because the screw-up fairy caused you to be born, doesn't mean your kids are such a disaster." She told him.

"Really? That's at least half a compliment." Christian said.

"Uh, no. I meant that they're part Lissa."

I glanced at dad, and he rolled his eyes. He was smiling though, and I knew he secretly enjoyed watching mom and Christian's arguments. Then again, everyone did. They were just ridiculous.

* * *

After dropping off all our cases back home, I decided to give Aleks the tour of Court. Though I wanted to spend some time alone with him, I asked if anyone else wanted to come along out of politeness. Of course, everyone said they wanted to come with us. I think they were trying to do some weird psycho-analysis on him to see if, now that he was away from St. Vlads and Hayden, he would be less of a dick.

It turned out he was.

Throughout the tour, Aleks was exactly like he had been when he first came to America- friendly, funny, and just a little bit cocky. He had a look of wonder on his face the entire time.  
Mom had told me that since Lissa had been elected Queen, Court had grown a little. It was now just a bit bigger than the Academy. The small commercial centre had been split into a separate mall, business centre and food court. Mom joked that when Lissa knew she would be living here for the rest of her life, she had immediately sorted more shopping facilities. Nobody was complaining.

The last stop of our tour was the spa building, hidden away at the back of Court.

"Have you booked us in for makeovers or something?" Aleks asked dryly.

"Why, do you want one?" I said, raising an eyebrow. "Because we're actually here to speak to someone." I turned my attention from Aleks to the girl behind the counter. "Has Rhonda got a few minutes?"

She set about checking the schedule on the computer. I came here a lot, generally not for readings, but for advice.

"Rhonda is kind of like me." I told Aleks with a wink. I was speaking Russian now, since there were a couple of Moroi around, and I didn't want them listening in to our conversation.

He looked surprised. "She's a _ved'ma_?" I nodded. "Never expected for one to be working at Court."

Like everyone else in Baia, Aleks knew I had 'the gift', just not the ins and outs of how it had manifested in me. As Yeva had told me, it was considered impolite to ask a _ved'ma _, as it was called in Russian, too much about their gift.

"Yeah, it is pretty weird. She's Moroi; an air user. She isn't as powerful as Yeva," I didn't mention myself, "and works mostly through Tarot cards and horoscopes... the gift doesn't speak through her directly." Aleks nodded in understanding, just as the receptionist caught my attention.

"Sorry, but Rhonda is completely booked today. She has a 20-minute slot tomorrow, though. Would you like me to book you in?"

"Yeah, please." I smiled. "One 7-card reading for Aleksander Kozlovsky, booked under Anastasia Belikov."

Aleks shot me a look, whispering, "Don't make me do it alone!"

I rolled my eyes. "She may share the same gifts, but she's not as creepy as Yeva." He didn't look convinced. "Fine."  
Raising my voice out of a whisper, I spoke to the receptionist. "Sorry, could I change that to two 4-card readings? One for me as well, please."

She smiled good-naturedly, but I could see she was a little bit irritated about having to change the booking. Clearly, I wasn't giving out the scary-witchy-vibe that Yeva or Rhonda had. I guess it would come with age. Then again, I would rather people be afraid of my badass Strigoi-saying skills than my (sadly nonexistent) ability to turn them into a toad. Man, that would be awesome.

"Anya?" Aleks asked.

"Sorry, spaced out. Thinking about toads and stuff, you know. We'll come back tomorrow. Right now I want to sit down and eat something. Cafe?"

Marina cut in. "Could we go home? I need a feeder."

"And I need to put these shopping bags away." Marina said, holding up 3 bags from various boutiques around Court. I really wasn't sure how she survived at the Academy. I had a suspicion that the reason she always had spare stationary to lend people was because she fuelled her craving to shop by purchasing erasers and pens from the small campus supply store.

Ash looked relieved that we were heading back to the palace. There was only so much time he could bear to spend in proximity to the other Royals around Court, and this tour had been just about enough for one day.

* * *

When we got back, Summer was making a ball of what looked like grass roll around on the floor, and her cat Ginger was trying to catch it.

"Hey, you should try that with Reka some time."

"I did. But he realised what I was doing, and licked my face to distract me, before destroying the ball. He's too clever."

"You're telling me," Ash huffed. "Last time we were here, I hid my sneakers on top of the wardrobe so he wouldn't be able to chew them. But he just slammed into it so one of the laces hung down, then pulled them down using that." He turned to Aleks. "Seriously, don't leave anything edible around your room, because the demon dog will eat it."

I rolled my eyes. "No he won't. He only steals your things because he doesn't like you. He'll be fine with Aleks." I could have rebuked Ash for talking bad about my baby like that, but I decided to cut him some slack since he was actually talking to Aleks civilly. My friends had been a little cold to him all day. It was understandable that they felt like that, and I was happy that they cared about me so much, but I'd prefer it if they just played nice with Aleks- for my sake. So far, only Mason and Sophia had been doing that.

"Really? Normally animals still don't like me much, even if you're around. They ignore me at best." Aleks reminded me.

"Not Reka. Believe me, once he gets used to you, there'll be nothing you can do to get rid of him."

Since Reka hadn't come running at the sound of his name, I guessed he was out in the gardens somewhere, terrorising squirrels or passing people. It was pretty funny to watch.

The bottom floor of the Lissa's palace was made up of business rooms, Guardians' stations and Lissa's meeting rooms.

We all headed up the wide staircase. Directly opposite was the single door that led into the huge living room. Through that, on one side was Lissa & Christian's wing, and our wing on the other.

I didn't mind these living arrangements. If you ignored the fact that you had to go through a shared kitchen/dining/living room to get to our wing, and that mom & dad's bedroom had a door that connected it to Lissa's, it was like having our own apartment.  
We had a small kitchenette and lounge of our own, huge bathroom (which I pretty much had to myself, sing mom & dad had an en suite in their bedroom), and 2 bedrooms.

Plus, I got to live next door to my best friend. That was a bonus, even if it did mean her psycho brother was just as close.

The Royal wing was almost the same, except that everything was on a larger scale, and it had more bedrooms. These had been added later; a new corridor had been constructed to connect the string of 4 extra rooms on the other side of the house to Lissa and Christian's apartment, effectively creating a new sub-wing.  
2 spare rooms had been left unconnected, one of which was to be Aleks' room. The other currently housed a pool table, foosball and pinball machine, all added by Christian. Lissa had insisted on adding a sofa bed, in case there were more spare rooms needed. Honestly though, guest housing was next door, and there were unused rooms next door that could be used as spare rooms if needed.

As I led Aleks into his room, I could see that Lissa had been busy. She loved redecorating the house, and looked for any chance to do a room makeover. She and Sophia should have gone into business as interior designers- that way, they could spend other peoples' money as well as their own.

"Whoa, nice room."

"Yeah." I agreed. Lissa had used a blue and gold colour scheme, with touches of sea green. She'd replaced the old 4-poster bed with a metal one, the gold posts twisting upwards like a candy cane, striped with blue. The design actually reminded me of the spiral patterns n some of the domes on Russian buildings. Knowing Lissa, it wasn't a coincidence.

Quiet descended on us, and I was suddenly aware that it was just me and him, alone in a bedroom, far away from everyone else. Obviously, we were alone a lot, and I'd been in his bedroom before. But since that kiss, that torturously amazing kiss, things were slightly different. I had to fill this silence somehow.

"So, you can get your stuff unpacked or whatever, then we can go and see everyone. Abe and Janine aren't coming until tomorrow, though."

"However will I hide the disappointment." Aleks joked, making me laugh.

"They're alright really. Plus they always give me awesome presents." I headed to the door, winking. "Yours had better be good!"

* * *

Half an hour later, I was sitting next to Sophia on the sofa in the huge shared living room, laughing as Reka followed Christian around the kitchen, begging for food. Christian tried to shoo him away, but eventually gave up. As soon as he turned his back, Reka stood up on his hind legs and rested his huge paws on the countertop. Christian spun around, but Reka had already dropped back onto all fours, and was trotting over to me, licking the evidence from his mouth.

"Anya! Can you try and keep that freaking dog out of my kitchen?" Christian shouted.

"Sorry, Uncle Chris." I said, looking up through my eyelashes. "It's just that he loves your cooking so much- we all do. It's just too good to resist."

Christian narrowed his eyes at me for a second, before sighing and turning away, letting it go. I grinned, knowing we'd gotten away with it. Christian had never been able stay annoyed at me, and I used my position as his goddaughter to my advantage. That, added to my puppy dog eyes (Reka's too) and a compliment to his cooking? Impossible for him to stay angry.

Just then, the door opened and Jet and Aleks came in, followed by Marina.  
Reka dropped into a slight crouch as he sensed the 3 Dhampirs, relaxing when he recognised 2 of them. As Aleks came closer, however, his hackles rose. Reaching out to get a feel of his strange, animal emotions, I picked up on protectiveness and wariness.

"Reka," I soothed, stroking his raised fur, "this is Aleks, and he's a friend." I concentrated on projecting my feelings for Aleks into the space around me, imagining my emotions filling the air and displayed as colours, like an aura.  
It was amazing what animals could pick up on from anyone, and my gift amplified this. Kinda like switching to a different frequency on a radio so the sound was clearer, I guess.

I felt Reka's emotions change as he picked up on my feelings towards Aleks. The protectiveness shifted to include Aleks as part of 'his pack'. His tail began to wag, and he walked to stand in front of Aleks, looking up at him.

"Hello boy." Aleks said, tentatively reaching out to pat Reka's head. Usually, Dhampirs weren't able to get close enough to touch animals. If Aleks had tried to get this near any other dog, without me around, he probably would have ended up getting bitten.

A smile grew on Aleks' face as he stroked Reka, and I heard someone else come into the room. I heard mom asking Christian when dinner would be ready. At the sound of 'dinner', Reka got more excited. He rose up onto his hind legs, resting his paws on Aleks' shoulders and giving his face a big doggie kiss.

Aleks was the first to laugh, and ruffled Reka's fur. "Hey, you are friendly, aren't you! Slobbery, too." He laughed again, and we all joined in.

"I told you he'd like you, Sasha." I giggled. "Talk about puppy love."

Reka gave Aleks' face one final lick before dropping back down and bounding over to the kitchen to steal some more food.

I caught mom's eye across the room, and she raised one eyebrow in that 'I know something's going on' way. I gave her an innocent smiled in return, and she narrowed her eyes for a second before letting it go, whatever 'it' was.

As the evening went on, I realised just how weird it was to have my friends, family and Aleks in the same room. Though I was having fun, I felt like I didn't really know what to say. On one hand, I was showing of just a little for my friends, whilst trying not to say anything that would piss my parents off. Then, I'd get caught up in mine and Aleks' little banter (with the tiniest part flirting), and feel embarrassed in front of everyone else, and cover it with a joke. Then, I'd have to be ready to snap a comeback at Ash or Christian.

I wasn't sure whether it was Aleks' unusual presence that had caused me to notice this split personality I had going on, or whether it was just that it was the first time all these different sides of me had been on alert at the same time. Either way, I was finding it kind of exhausting to keep up, and struggle with my inner conflict.

When I was with my friends normally, I always felt like I had to be the strong, sassy one. It wasn't like they were pressuring me to be that, or like I wouldn't fit in if I didn't, but that was just how it felt right. I'd hide any discomfort with a joke.

With Aleks, I always felt kind of self-conscious, like I didn't want to be anything less than perfect with him. But at the same time, I knew he accepted me for who I was inside, and no jokes would be able to hide problems anyway (unless it was about my true feelings for him; then he remained blissfully unaware).

So I guess it was the conflict of being caught between the ones who I tried to hide my inner self and emotions from, but not my material imperfections, and the one who knew me better than anyone else, but who I always feared I wasn't good enough for. All whilst trying to hide one set of insecurities from the others, and both from my parents (whilst one kept shooting me strange looks).

Well, that was enough to stress anyone out.

Hopefully, I'd wake up tomorrow morning and all my dysfunctions would have remained with 15-year-old me, and 16-year-old me would look back and laugh at the mess I'd turned myself into.

Yeah, I know it was unlikely. But either way, at least I was getting presents tomorrow.

* * *

**In the next chapter, we get to see Rose give Anya some Mom Wisdom :3 Then after that, more cute daddy Dimitri when they give Anya her birthday presents. **

**P.S~ Anyone else getting their GCSE results tomorrow? :O Good luck everyone! :)**

**Please review, it'll make me update faster. Pinkie promise :) **


	21. Chapter 21

**Here we go, some mother-daughter bonding between Rose and Anya :) **

**Remember, all **_**italics**_** conversations take place in Russian. **

**Disclaimer: Vampire Academy belongs to Richelle Mead. **

* * *

I was reading my favourite book in bed later that night when my bedroom door cracked open. "Yeah?" I asked, folding the corner of my page back.

Mom stepped into the room, shutting the door behind her. She sat down beside me on the bed, rolling her eyes when she saw what I was reading.

"That one again? Are you not bored of it by now?"

"Nope," I said, popping the 'p'. "But I am bored of you saying _that_ every time I'm trying to read my favourite book."

"Touché" she conceded, and we sat in silence for a minute.

Mom was the one to speak first. "What's the matter, Anya? You seemed a bit off at dinner."

"Nothing really," I sighed. "It's just... it's weird, you know? Everyone being here. It feels like the different parts of my life are coming together, which should be great, but... there's just something that feels like its missing."

Mom smiled. "Maybe it's just because you're used to being around Aleks in Russia with everyone else there. Give Babushka a call tomorrow or Skype your friends." I nodded, but she hadn't finished. "There's more to it than that, though, isn't there."

I had been about to negate her question, tell her that there was nothing else bothering me. But like so often happened with me, unexpected words bypassed my brain and tumbled from my lips.

"I don't know what to do, mom. In some ways I think I need to grow up, but then I just want to stay young and not have the responsibilities. I mean, in 2 years, someone's life is gonna be in my hands."

After I said it, I realised that I really had been worrying about that. All the times I'd allowed (and encouraged) Sophia to use her Spirit powers for silly things when we all knew how dangerous it was, sneaking out of the school, and the fact that I was an reckless teenager with impulse control that often spent lessons daydreaming about the person sitting next to me. What kind of Guardian would I be, supposing I even got through graduation?

Mom smiled gently, a contrast to my inner turmoil. "Anya, don't worry about that yet. You still have some time yet. I didn't even realise that for another 2 years, and Lissa turned out fine. This is why we fought so hard to get the age law changed, so you _wouldn't_ have to grow up so fast."

"But..." I trailed off.

"Look, honey. You are more mature than most girls your age. You don't just grow up all at once, anyway. I think your mind, body and heart should all do it at different rates."

"Huh?"

"Look. Those people at school that you can't stand- they act like they're all so grown up with their drugs and alcohol and crazy parties. I admit, I thought so too at the time, though I wasn't that bad." She made a face, and I knew she was talking about the other stuff that the girls got up to.

"But there has to be a balance, and they don't know how to control it. They go to parties and drink like they can handle it, but end up doing crazy shit afterwards. Their brains aren't developed enough to have any kind of common sense to say 'stop', and they're not emotionally strong enough to cope with the consequences."

I nodded in agreement.  
"But you, Anya, are different. You have a fully functioning brain that tells you what a stupid idea that is, you can see that they're effectively playing pass the parcel with an AIDS-ridden vodka bottle and pin the tail on the donkey with their dicks."

I snorted at the mental image.  
"But this means you space out a little into crazy town to compensate, which is absolutely fine.  
You're also emotionally aware enough that you can empathise with others, and try not to do things that will screw with your emotions in the future. You won't have to regret."  
Well...  
"But that strength can also leave you weak sometimes, and because you know emotional pain and heartache, you cry over things they can't begin to understand."

"I guess that makes sense." I conceded. Then I threw her a curveball.  
"But all those contradictions drive me crazy! What am I, mature or childish? Kind or bitchy, stable or crazy? Sometimes I feel like there are so many different sides to me that I had to name my different personalities to keep up with them!"  
I know, schizophrenic much?

Mom looked sympathetic.  
"Honey, nobody acts the same all the time around different people. Your personality is multi-faceted- you act different around different people. And that doesn't mean that some of the time you're being someone who you're not. It just means that you're human. Sort of."

I waited for her to explain further.  
"I act different when I'm around different people. With my friends, I act kinda crazy, showing off a little and trying to make them laugh. When I'm just with you and your dad, I don't do that so much. I don't have to try so hard.  
But just because I try to crack jokes around my friends, it doesn't mean it isn't me.  
And you act different at home to what you do at school, obviously. It doesn't mean that either isn't the real you."

"But... how do I know what's the real me and what isn't? Because sometimes I'm doing something and I'm like, yeah, this is me. But later I'll be on my own and feel completely different, but still be myself."

She sighed, running a hand over my hair.  
"Sweetheart, the phrase 'be yourself' was probably said by someone who had absolutely no personality whatsoever and lived out his life in solitary confinement. Because we never truly know ourselves, and that's just life.  
But the thing to remember is, whatever part of your personality you're acting as, you need to ask yourself something.  
You need to ask yourself if you feel like you're putting on a mask. If you're being someone you're not, and you ask that question, you'll know the answer deep inside. You'll feel like you're just acting a part in someone else's show, and if somewhere inside you have to question if that is who you really are- you're probably not."

I let her words sink in. "So, what you're saying is... there isn't just one 'me'?" "

Exactly," she told me, smiling. "You're the badass Anya, who'll punch anyone who gets in your way, or threatens those you care about. Then there's funny, crazy Anya, who just likes to act a tiny bit immature around your close friends, and have a good time. Then you're the compassionate Anya, who feels everyone's pain and wants to fix the world's problems. Then there's the hopeful, innocent part that just wants to be loved the way you love Aleks."

I stared, stunned. Mom laughed.  
"Yes, I know about that. The way you look at him, the way you sometimes forget what you're trying to say. It's the only time I ever see you back down from a fight."  
I looked down, but she tilted my face back up again.  
"And that's OK. But you have to realise that those different versions of yourself aren't who you should be, would be or could be fighting against who you are, and you have to pick one to be. Because _that _wouldn't be you. All those people are _you_, Anya. Those different facets make up the gem that is you, and without them you wouldn't be whole."

Wow, that was a dad-worthy piece of Zen wisdom. She looked sympathetic.  
"And I know as well as anyone that when one of those parts receives less attention than the others, then everything begins to crack and crumble. Since you and Aleks stopped talking, you've lost a part of yourself, and have begun to question who you are. So the way I see it, you have a couple of choices."

I looked at her to continue.  
"You can go on as you are, and hope that you'll eventually move on and rebuild yourself in a completely new way, maybe stronger than before.  
You could focus on a different part of your personality, use that in the place you would normally act around Aleks- cut him off and act like a badass bitch. Badmouth him if he tries to come near you, and let him know that he has missed his chance for good."

She saw the look of disapproval on my face.  
"Or you can suck it up and try to talk to him, let him know the truth. Show him who you really are- every beautiful, crazy, dysfunctional part of you."

"Oh, thanks." I said sarcastically. She just smiled.

"And if that doesn't work, then, well. You have other people who love you, and who will support you. Let them fill the hole he left behind, and slowly you'll start to heal. One day, I promise, you will find somebody else who will love, and who will feel the same way about you."

If I had my way, I'd never move on from Aleks. But I know I'm not going to keep spending my life waiting for him if he's going to be like he has for the last few weeks- distant and cold.

"Is that what you tried to do when dad was turned?" I asked quietly.

Her expression turned rueful. "Yeah, I guess. Though that probably isn't the best example, since you know how Adrian and I turned out, and I really thought I'd never get him back."  
She looked me in the eye then.  
"Honestly, Anya, at your age I thought destiny or fate was just a load of shit people made up as an excuse for their mistakes. But then I met Dimitri, and even after everything was stacked against us, it turned out alright in the end. And after a conversation with Yeva, I guess I started to have a little more faith. And all I can say is, if it's meant to be, then it will turn out alright in the end. But you have to work for it if you really want it."

"Yeah, I guess so..."

Mom laughed. "Well, you're the one that sees the future, oh powerful one."

I glared. "You know I can't control it and it's fuzzy and barely ever useful."

She shrugged. "Still cool though."

I grinned. "Well duh, it's me."

We were silent again for a minute.  
"Ok, so you gave me 3 options. But what do I _do_?"I pleaded.

Mom grinned. "Do you want responsible motherly advice, what I would have done at your age, or what I've learned in life?"

I pretended to ponder the decision. "Uhh, the third one."

Mom grinned. "Then you don't need my advice, you'll be fine."

I raised one eyebrow, knowing it would annoy her.  
She just smiled gently. "Anastasia, this is something you really need to do on your own. Just remember. You may be a Belikov up here-" She tapped my temple. "But you're a Hathaway at heart." She placed a hand on my chest, over the necklace that Aleks had once got for me all those years ago.

She pulled me into a hug and I held on tight, so glad that I had her for a mother. "I love you, mom." I whispered.

She stroked my hair. "I love you too Anya, you crazy girl."

I heard footsteps in the doorway.  
"Don't I get to join in the family bonding moment?" I heardsays ask.

Mom and I made room for him to join the hug. His arms went around the 2 of us easily.  
Dad pulled away and brushed some hair out of my face.  
_"Nearly 16 years ago I held you in my arms and thought you could never be any more beautiful. But as the years pass you become more and more like your mother. Kind, beautiful and strong."_

Mom huffed. "So much for 'joining in the family moment'. Freeze me out, why don't you?"

Dad and I laughed. "Come on, you understood most of that." He teased.

She shrugged. "Yeah, but it was effort to translate. Come on, the birthday girl needs her sleep."

I rolled my eyes. "16 years mom, not 16 months. And you're the geriatric ones who need beauty sleep. Fatigue causes wrinkles." I warned them.

Mom grinned. "Alright, but I'm not middle aged yet. Though I suppose I'd better get your dad to bed."

"Yeah, go on old man." I told him, quoting mom talking to grandpa.

He just shook his head and ignored my comment. "_Goodnight, sweetheart."_

"_Night, papa." _I kissed his cheek and he got up from the bed, taking mom's hand as she stood up too.

"See you in the morning, baby." She said, and just before she closed the door I saw her wink.

I flopped back on the bed, flicking the light switch as I did so.  
_Belikov mind, Hathaway at heart.  
_

I lay there for a while as my mind sorted through what my heart was trying so desperately to tell me.

Just before it turned 12:00, I listened to Taylor Swift's _Fifteen_ for the final time whilst I was that age.

I finally came to a decision on what I was going to do.  
_Talk to Aleks. Nothing to drastic, not too much of a drama. Keep it simple, and get my point across. Play it safe. _My head told me.

_Play it safe?_ I may have a cautious mind, but hey. At heart, I was a Hathaway...

* * *

**I actually wrote most of this chapter 6 months ago, the night before **_**my **_**16****th**** birthday, to try and sort my own crazy mind out :P Reading back over it, so much has happened since then that has changed me, and in turn, the structure of this story. But I'm happy with how it's turning out anyway, in both ways. **

**I've been planning the 2****nd**** and 3****rd**** stories in this series, and I think you'll like where they're going. This particular story is more about Anya finding herself and establishing relationships, the next one will have more danger/drama and the last one will be just like :O DRAMA! **

**I'm gonna stop rambling now because I have to write down an idea for a new story that's been stuck in my head for a couple of hours, and just say that the next chapter will be up soon :) **


	22. Chapter 22

**Finally, finally this awful chapter is done! It took me so long to write it, even though I knew what I wanted to be in here. I think it was the fact I was writing Dimitri from his daughter's point of view, which is really, really weird :S But hey, it's done, and I hope you like it :) **

**Disclaimer: Vampire Academy belongs to Richelle Mead. **

* * *

The next morning, I bounced out of bed an hour before sunset- a magical occurrence that only happened when presents were involved.

Dad was already in the kitchen, standing over the cooker. Judging by the syrup, chocolate chips and berries on the counter beside him, he was making my favourite blini.

"Morning papa." I greeted him.

He turned around, smiling. "Happy birthday Anya. Did you sleep alright?"

"Yeah, not bad," I replied, sneaking a chocolate chip from the packet as dad turned his back on them. "Is mom still asleep?"

"Not quite," he laughed. "She should be up in a minute. I did try; but she threatened to hit me if I didn't leave her alone."

I rolled my eyes, just as I heard footsteps from behind us. "It's the anniversary of the most exhausting day of my life, and I don't even get any presents for the trouble. I at least deserve a lie-in."

I spun around, hands on hips. "Hey, you got me! And I'm the greatest gift you could have got."

"You're not bad, I guess. Though sometimes the option of a refund would be nice."

I glared playfully, just as dad told us that breakfast was ready. Mom and I both bolted for the table, and were sitting down with forks in hand waiting to devour the food.

After breakfast was finished, we moved to the sofa. I sat between my parents, and after replying to Sophia's '**Happy Birthday!' **text, got started on unwrapping the first parcel.

I got a stack of books, clothes and the usual stuff, but I noticed that it wasn't actually that much. Logically, this meant that there would be a bigger, more expensive present on the way. I hadn't asked for anything like that- Abe was usually the one to spoil me with technology- so I was curious when dad handed me a large brown envelope.

After looking at my parents questioningly, I peeled open the seal and pulled out some sheets of paper.

When I saw what was written there, I couldn't help but squeal a little. Very unlike me, but then again, this was very unlike my parents.

"Riding lessons?!" I squealed happily.

"Yes- a week-long stay at a riding camp." Dad answered with a smile.

"See, we _can_ take a hint."

I turned around and hugged them both tight. It seemed that leaving magazines with details of similar camps around my bedroom for the last 3 years hadn't been entirely lost on them after all. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou!" I repeated.

"I'm glad you like it baby." Mom said, hugging me back. "But this one was mostly dad's work."

I disentangled myself to look at him, grinning. "You just want me to be able to live your cowboy fantasy, don't you." He rolled his eyes, but I knew I was onto something. "If this goes well, and I get a horse of my own one day, I'll train him not to freak out around Dhampirs and you can live your dream."

"One step at a time, Milaya," he laughed.

Noticing that neither of them had made a move, I decided to go for it. "So... any more presents?"

They both laughed at that. "Just one," mom told me, indicating for me to hold my hands out. I did, and she dropped a small red box into my palm. Carefully untying the gold ribbon, I removed the lid and pushed the tissue paper aside.

My breath caught as I saw what was inside.

After casting a quick glance at mom's wrist, and having my suspicions confirmed, my hands began to shake a little.  
Almost reverently, I drew the beaded bracelet out from where it was nestled against the paper. The heavy gold cross swung from the rosary, the dragon wreathed in flowers glinting in the light.

"Mom..." I breathed. "This is..."

"Yes," she replied quietly. "My _chotki_. Well, yours now."

"But... it's yours- you can't give it to me."

"It belongs to a Guardian of the Dragomirs. You're going to guard Sophia when you graduate, so I'd have given it to you then anyway. But I thought, after last night, that you should have it now. You already know your responsibilities, and you're going to be an amazing Guardian. This is just to remind you of that, when times get hard. You can do anything as long as you set your heart and mind to it."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I just hugged her instead. After a few moments, she released her grip on me.  
"Go on and put your new dress on, then we can go see everyone and you can get even more presents. Babushka should be calling soon as well."

I nodded, standing up to go and get ready. I had only taken a few steps when I turned back and kissed both my parents on the cheek, before darting into my room to get dressed.

* * *

Half an hour later, I was wearing the black and white cotton dress that mom had got me. It was casual enough to be worn with boots in the day, but with heels and the right accessories I could wear it in the evening as well. Right now, my hair was left in natural waves and I had my black knee-high heeled boots which were totally impractical, but I loved all the same. It was only occasions like this, not traipsing around school, that I could wear them.

I'd just skyped with everyone in Russia, and was left with the contented feeling that I always did after speaking to my relatives. I'd opened their presents so they could see, before having a quick chat with Alicia. She'd asked about Aleks, but not wanting to spoil my happy mood, I hadn't told her about what a douche he'd been lately. It was bad enough to see her surprise that we still weren't an item yet.

I cast those thoughts out of my mind as the door opened, filling the apartment with the sound of lots of people entering. I closed the lid of my laptop to see the usual gang as well as Abe and Janine.

They came over to me first- after all, everyone else saw me pretty much all the time. Abe scooped me up in a hug, and as always I was surprised by the strength of the old Moroi. Not that his age really showed, though. He was still as feisty as I always remembered, same as grandma.

"Hey gramps," I greeted him. "Now I'm 16, can you tell me about all the kneecaps you've broken?"

He laughed good-naturedly as grandma let out an exasperated sigh, probably wondering how she'd been so unlucky to have another Hathaway that thought Abe was one of the coolest people in the world.  
"Maybe later," he promised with a wink, "but I've got even better stuff for right now."

He was right. As well as the new iPhone, I got a book of 'how to steal anything'. From instructions on how to hotwire cars to computer hacks, it really did teach you how to steal anything.

"Is this thing even legal?" I asked.

Abe shrugged. "I bought it online, it can't be that bad. Granted, the seller did disappear from the site a couple of days later..." he mused, shutting up as grandma glared at him.

As mom and Abe joked about how it was probably a good thing he'd never bought her presents like that, I went over to my friends.

"Happy birthday!" Sophia squealed, practically squeezing the life out of me.

"Haven't you already done that today? And please don't break my back yet, I have loads more hugs to survive today."

On that cue, all my friends suddenly rushed forwards and pulled me into a group hug. Even Lily joined, which was rare. She wasn't really the hugging type. I guess the opportunity to irritate me warranted it this time.

"Ugh, gnet oghff," I mumbled, face smushed against Mason's shoulder.

They let go just as I heard laughter from the other side of the room, and I looked over to see Lissa blushing and dad looking uncomfortable as Christian and mom laughed. I immediately picked up on what they were talking about.

"Okay, I think it's time to get out of here," I said. "I have a feeling that they're joking about something that may have led to my conception." I scrunched my nose up, grabbing my jacket off the arm of the sofa. "We're going for a walk, we'll be back in a bit." I shouted in the vague direction of my parents. A lack of any disagreement was enough for me, and I followed my friends out of the apartment. I was pleased to see that they were still holding the gift bags they had come in with.

We stopped when we reached the Royal gardens that Lissa had created, sitting in the 'U' of benches overlooking a small pond.

"Your parents always get all loved up on your birthday." Ash noted.

"They're always loved up, idiot. They're _Rose and Dimitri_." Marina pointed out.

Ash sneered at her, and I spoke before a fight could break out between the 2 of them. "They're even worse on their anniversary. And they seem to have lots of anniversaries for different things." Their wedding anniversary and the one that fell about a week before mom's birthday were the worst. The first one was alright, but I didn't want to think about what the second one might be commemorating. I was pretty sure I'd have to scrub my mind out if I knew.

"I think it's really sweet. I hope my husband and I are still like that after so long," Marina sighed.

Ash snickered. "What, Angelo?" The weird thing about Ash was that even though he sort of stayed on the edge of the group, he knew practically everything about everyone- and that went for the entire Academy. A perk of being invisible, I guess.

"Shut up asshole!" Marina shouted at him, and I was pretty sure she was one snide comment away from attacking. They were really going at each other's throats today. Now I knew how everyone else felt all the time when Ash and I fought. Not that I would stop, though.

"Will you two shut up?! There are unopened presents here, and it isn't nice to torture someone on their birthday."

"It's always a good time to-" I cut Jet's joke off with a glare. "Okay, okay, chill out. I'm sorry, birthday-zilla." The glare intensified, and Jet slid a bag over to me. "Good girl, easy now..."

Rolling me eyes, I stopped glaring and instead focussed my attention on the box in front of me. I tore the paper off, and opened the flap of the cardboard box inside.  
Tipping the box, a plushie turtle slid out.

The soft shell was studded with tiny bulbs, and I pressed the button on the turtle's front flipper. The bulbs lit up, glowing a soft bluish colour in the darkness of the Court garden and forming a swirling pattern that was like stars or flowers.

"Okay, now that is pretty cute," I admitted. "Not bad, Jet Li." Jet grinned as I used his old nickname. He had gone through a ninja phase a few years ago, and the name had been too funny to ever let him forget. "Okay, who's next?"

It was a pretty good haul this year. Mason had accepted the challenge of trying to beat my birthday present to him, and had got me a donut maker complete with recipe book and starter ingredients. I was so lucky not to have inherited my mom's cooking skills, or lack thereof.

Aleks was now the only one whose gift I had left to open. This was the one I was most excited about. After last night, I had been trying not to think about him too much, knowing I'd become a nervous wreck in front of everyone if I thought too much about what I had decided to do. He'd been pretty quiet so far today, and I wasn't really sure what that meant.

Aleks passed me a small box wrapped in gold and green paper. "Okay, so I didn't actually spend anything, but it's better than if I had." He told me cryptically. His voice had an anxious edge to it, as though he was worried about what I'd think of his present.

I pulled off the gold ribbon, and carefully unwrapped the paper to reveal a faded red jewellery box. Opening in the lid, my eyes just about bugged out of my head.

"Sasha!" I breathed, carefully pulling the ring out of its holder. The colour flipped between bright emerald and deep ruby as it hit caught the moonlight, and the electric lights of lanterns dotted around us. "This is..."

I looked up into his eyes, and the small, happy smile on his face took my breath away.

"What is it?" Sophia asked.

"Alexandrite. A really rare gem from Russia." I looked up at Aleks. "Where did you get this?"

He smiled. "It was my great grandmother's. It's supposed to pass down to the eldest girl in the family, but obviously, I don't have any sisters."

"So why didn't it go to the oldest brother?"

A strange look crossed Aleks' face for a second, before it smoothed back into a smile. "Well, the stone does share my name. That, and the idea is that it gets given to a special girl. You know my brother's a bit of a player- if he gave it to a girl, it would never be seen again after a week." Aleks paused, taking my hand. "And you're special to me, Asya. You mean more to me than any other girl in the world."

I pulled him in for a hug, feeling a little bit like I wanted to cry. "I love you, Sasha. And I love the ring. You're the best."

"I love you too, Asya. Always."

I knew that Aleks' version of love was a whole lot different to mine. He didn't believe in the whole romantic love thing, and generally didn't have deep emotions. Or so he said. I couldn't feel anything from him, which was always weird.

But in this moment, I allowed myself a second of pretending that he meant it in the same way as me. Not like sisterly affection, but the kind of all-consuming love I felt for him. Wrapped up in his arms, it was easy to pretend.

But all too soon, he pulled away, and I had to follow in the same instant. I couldn't risk holding him any longer, or I knew I wouldn't be able to let go.

And that was when I knew that, despite what I'd decided last night, I couldn't ruin this friendship that I had with Aleks. He was distant enough already, without my declaration of love driving a wedge between us. He wouldn't be able to understand anyway. It would just break us. It was less painful to pretend.

To cover up my disappointment, I stood up and grabbed my purse from the counter."Let's go show Court how to party."

* * *

**3 weeks of work boil down into those 2,000 words. Please leave me a review and tell me what you think, and I'll get the next chapter up as soon as I can :)**


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